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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24155473">Get a Little Lonely</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxglovves/pseuds/foxglovves'>foxglovves</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(although it switches up a little), Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Casual D/s, Celery Juice, Dominant Eddie Kaspbrak, Established Relationship, Light Humiliation, Light Praise Kink, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Phone Sex, Semi-Clothed Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Size Kink, Submissive Richie Tozier, Teasing, Top Richie Tozier, Unnegotiated Power Exchange, Unprotected Sex, alcohol use, drunk bill, everybody lives au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:01:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,830</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24155473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxglovves/pseuds/foxglovves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“Huh.” Eddie mulls that over, popping a piece of banana in his mouth. He’s using a fork to eat the pieces of banana, which Richie is fairly certain is a marker of psychopathic behavior. “How long do you think you could last?”</p>
  <p>Richie blinks. “What?”</p>
  <p>“You know,” Eddie continues, gesturing with his fork. “While you’re on tour, maybe we should see, is all I’m saying.”</p>
  <p>He’s talking about this like it’s the weather again. “You mean like, without…” Richie ventures, helplessly, and Eddie nods. </p>
  <p>“If I told you to. Do you think you could try?”</p>
</blockquote><br/>Richie's gone for a month, and Eddie has him go without, just as long.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Background Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, background Mike Hanlon/Bill Denbrough</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>699</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Get a Little Lonely</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>a/n: To err on the side of caution here, this fic involves a casual, unnegotiated D/s relationship that doesn't involve safe words. This is mostly because the "safe word" is really that if Richie were to say that he didn't like this, or if Eddie genuinely got that sense, they'd both give up the conceit here—they're in a long term relationship here and know each other well!</p><p>Inspired by "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings" by Caroline Polachek.</p><p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn3cHUtNZKo</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When it comes down to it, this is Richie’s favorite part:</p><p>Eddie sprawled on the bed underneath him, flushed down to his chest, panting; come pooled on the flat pane of his belly, above his spent cock. Richie wants to lick it off of him; he wants to burn the sight of Eddie like this, undone, wrecked, into his retinas. He wants to kiss him where he’s gone damp with sweat at his temples. He wants to suck a bruise, dark and purple, into the column of his throat, just barely dipping below where the collar of Eddie’s work shirts would hit, where only he would know, where only he could see.</p><p>And Richie’s thoughts scatter as Eddie reaches up, fumbles for Richie’s face, knocking his glasses askew as he pulls him into a kiss, and Richie is eager to obey as he shallowly rocks into Eddie again reflexively. He’d do anything he said right now; he’d follow, anywhere he led—</p><p>A cacophony of bells clang shrilly through the air, and Richie’s <em> mmph </em> of surprise is cut off as Eddie breaks the kiss in order to fumble for his phone, forgotten on the bedside table, nearly dropping it in his haste as he bites back a curse. </p><p>“Edward Kaspbrak speaking!” he manages, a little frantically, clutching it to his ear. Richie can <em> feel </em> him tense up, but when he grinds into him hopefully, the look Eddie gives him is nothing short of murderous, so he stills. </p><p>Eddie’s not a prude—he likes to think he is, but Richie knows him, and he’d also been present, participatory, and sober when Eddie had blown him in the coat closet at his office holiday party. But Eddie post-orgasm is an entirely different sort of Eddie than Eddie pre-orgasm; he runs hot but he cools down quick, and he’s cooled down enough now, it seems, so that fucking while on the phone with someone from work is out of the question.</p><p>It doesn’t make this any easier—in fact, it makes things, on a general, physical level, markedly harder, which isn’t much of a surprise. Richie’s long since come to terms with the fact that Eddie is at his sexiest when he looks like he might want to kill him. </p><p>But that’s all just internal angst. Resignedly, Richie moves to pull out, but Eddie’s hand flies up to press his palm to Richie’s chest in a clear <em> stay</em>. </p><p>So: Richie stays. </p><p>It’s agony. </p><p>“Yes. Yes. No. Yes,” Eddie says in a staccato, drumming his fingers on Richie’s chest absently as he speaks, like each faint tap isn’t excruciating. Richie swallows, frozen. “No, we spoke about this. In the budget meetings. I don’t want to make any decisions until—one second.”</p><p>Eddie pushes at him with a little bit more force, and just like that, Eddie’s made up his mind; <em> stay </em> becomes <em> go</em>, and not the good kind of go, either, although he looks sorry as he puts the call on mute. </p><p>“This’ll be quick,” Eddie hastens to say, a little hoarsely, and pulls Richie in for another kiss, although this one is quick and apologetic. “Sorry, Rich, I’ve gotta—they’re fucking stupid.”</p><p>“So stupid,” Richie agrees dazedly, as he would agree to just about anything right now, in the state that he’s in. He pulls out of Eddie and flops down on the bed beside him, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling as he tries, very hard, to ignore his own erection. A Herculean effort. His thirteenth labor. After the golden apples—or maybe that wasn’t the last one. He can’t remember. </p><p>As distractions go, Greek mythology isn’t much of one, at least in a helpful way. Richie thinks of Eddie in a toga and sandals. </p><p>“I can’t believe them,” Eddie hisses, hopping down off the bed, only bothering to give himself a cursory wipedown with his t-shirt, which means that he’s <em> really </em> fired up. “God. This’ll just take, like, <em> five minutes, </em>I swear. Okay? Don’t move. Don’t do anything, I’ll be back.”</p><p>Richie watches Eddie go, like a sexy, fucked-out Terminator, and wonders absently how long—as per just about every commercial for every kind of medication—it takes someone to die, medically speaking, from being hard. </p><p><em> Die Hard</em>, he thinks, and laughs, humorlessly. He sounds deranged. </p><p>"Beep beep,” he mutters to himself. </p><p>Five minutes isn’t a long time, at least. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ten minutes isn’t, either. Or fifteen. Ish. Twenty minutes, as it turns out, is just about where Richie’s more or less tapped out, for the present moment, because he’s forty and even the dulcet tones of Eddie’s Business Eddie Voice from the other room can’t keep him going full-speed-ahead like he might’ve been able to back in his twenties. For the first five minutes, he’d thought about the unsexiest things that he could think about in order to stave off the impulse to give up and jerk off—Pennywise naked, his Econ professor in college, the one with all the ear hair, and alright, fine, Eddie’s mother—but as the minutes had marched on, and Richie’s attention had, generally, wandered, any sort of a deliberate distraction became less and less imperative. </p><p>So Richie’s focus has to veer, instead, to keeping himself <em> invested</em>, and as he awaits Eddie’s inevitable but hopefully speedy-ish return, he finds himself thinking about things that might keep him hot. Normal stuff, at first (Eddie in from a run in the morning, that photo of Eddie at twenty-five that one of Eddie’s friends had posted as a throwback on Facebook, which makes Richie feel faintly like some sort of old lech to revisit, et cetera), until something pops into Richie’s head unexpectedly. </p><p>“Don’t move,” Eddie-in-his-head says, except this time, his voice is low and sultry. “Don’t do anything.” Richie’s been giving himself a half-hearted stroke, but he stills—except this time, inexplicably, imaginary-Eddie continues on. “<em>Don’t touch yourself,” </em> he says sternly, and Richie pulls his hand away, flushing with—</p><p>—guilt? That, maybe, but something else, mixed in there too. Shame, but a good kind of shame, maybe. Eddie had got his—he’d watched Eddie come, he’d liked it, he’d been satisfied by that. Not entirely, but enough. And there’s something else satisfying in that itself. Murky, indistinct, confusing, but <em> there </em> anyway. </p><p>Richie pulls his hand away and laces his fingers together on his chest, uncertain. He looks up at the ceiling some more, and wants. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s two hours before Eddie comes back into the bedroom. By then, Richie’s showered and dressed; he’d puttered around in the kitchen, actually, and he’s halfheartedly chipping away at some material he’s been get to workshoppable status, centered around Stan’s first trip to New York three months ago (he had been unimpressed, but, mysteriously, <em> delighted </em> by that fact), halfway through a mug of coffee. </p><p>“Oh, I think you have to take an IQ test to work there,” Eddie says, mid-rant, as he tends to be in general when he enters a room, but he’s off the phone now, so that’s an improvement, at least. “I really think so. And I think if it’s too high, they don’t hire you. Like, nope, sorry, you’re too dumb! There’s the door—oh, fuck.”</p><p>Eddie, between the door and Richie’s work desk, freezes, eyes cartoonishly huge as he stares at him. Guilt settles across his face.</p><p>“Richie,” he ventures. “<em>Fuck</em>. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry, I...I totally forgot. We were going to...the call kept going on, it turned into this whole nightmare…”</p><p>“No! No, Eddie, it’s cool,” Richie says hastily, because Eddie’s eyes are so big, and Eddie looks so torn up over this, and Richie loves him so much. “It’s fine. Shit happens.”</p><p>And it <em> is </em> cool, Richie realizes, just then, as he says it. He hadn’t gotten what he’d wanted, but he’d gotten something else—sated in a different sort of way, by being <em> un </em>sated. Something that had tempered his arousal, even if it had cooled; because it’s not gone, he realizes now. It had just settled down a little, humming just under his skin, and that satisfaction lingers. He knows this suddenly, with such clarity, that it’s almost startling.</p><p>Eddie comes up behind him and bends to drape him over himself, his arms coming to loosely link up around Richie’s chest as he sits in his chair. Richie leans back into him, lets himself enjoy his scent, the warmth of him behind him, how he fits himself around him. </p><p>“It’s not cool,” Eddie mumbles, close to his ear. “<em>So </em>not cool. I totally blueballed you.” </p><p>“Well, I will survive this, somehow,” Richie sighs, one hand coming up to rest on Eddie’s forearm, thumb dragging against his skin absently. “I’m very brave. I survived death by clown not once, but twice, and so even now, with great tenacity, I will forge on—hey.”</p><p>Eddie, apparently bored of Richie’s little comedy routine, has slipped one of his hands free, where it’s meandered down the slope of Richie’s chest, and then down further, until he catches him by the wrist. </p><p>“What?” Eddie asks, and Richie can hear his frown. “Is something wrong with your dick?”</p><p>“My dick’s great. Leave my dick out of this,” Richie says, his voice a little strangled, because as it turns out, waiting like he had, unwillingly or not, means that he wants Eddie’s hand to continue its slow progress twice as much, which is an interesting and new thing. It takes every effort that Richie has to return Eddie’s hand to his shoulder, safely out of distance from where he wants it the most. “I’m <em> good</em>, Eddie. I mean it! I’m just, uh. In the comedy zone right now.”</p><p>Eddie gives him a pat on the shoulder, and pauses. “No <em> hard </em> feelings?” he ventures, slowly. Emphasis, very clearly, on the <em> hard</em>. Eddie is funny—he’s one of the funniest people Richie knows—but rarely when he tries. Subtlety isn’t really in his comedic oeuvre. </p><p>“You’re really a little asshole, Eddie, sometimes,” Richie informs him, pleasantly. “I hope you know that. I hope everyone knows that. People look at the two of us, they think god, how does Eddie put up with him, but if they only knew—”</p><p>Eddie laughs and disentangles himself from Richie, finally, although he leans in curiously to peer at Richie’s computer screen before he does it. “What’s that about? Oh. Stan?”</p><p>He steps away. Richie can hear the hush of fabric of fabric hitting the floor, and Richie knows that Eddie is undressing so that he can shower, as much as he knows that Eddie will shortly retrieve the clothes from the floor and put them into the laundry hamper, because Eddie hasn’t yet realized that leaving things on the floor essentially serves the same function as putting them in a laundry hamper, as in each scenario, they’ll reach the same inevitable endpoint (the washing machine). </p><p>Richie doesn’t turn around to look at Eddie. He could, but he doesn’t. This is called self control. He realizes, absently, that he’s written the same sentence four times. </p><p>“Put in the part about when you made him take the picture with the Rockette,” Eddie calls, and Richie can hear him padding away to the bathroom, can imagine him naked, without any clothes on, undressed, bare. “It’s funny.”</p><p>“Roger that,” Richie says, a little weakly, and shifts in his chair. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He keeps thinking about it. Not <em> constantly</em>—he’s forty, he has work to do, he’s leaving for month’s worth of one-off gigs across the country tomorrow, there’s much to prepare for—but it returns to him, occasionally. Particularly, of course, when prompted, like when Eddie stretches to reach for a glass on the top shelf of the cabinet and a sliver of skin is bared in passing, or when they bump into each other in the narrow corridor to the laundry room and Eddie laughs and kisses him. </p><p>Richie hasn’t quite had to play late-stage catch up in the same way that Eddie had—where Eddie buried his various inclinations deep under several neat layers of repression, Richie has been perfectly aware of what gets him going ever since he’d been a horrible teenager, as much as he’d been aware of how profoundly it shamed him. So it’s a surprise, to stumble across something new like this to learn about himself. Especially something as confusing as this is. </p><p>“Rich.”</p><p>It doesn’t even make sense, really. To want to <em> not </em> get what he wants. </p><p>“<em>Richie</em>.”</p><p>It could be some sort of fluke, though. It’s hard to tell, although the fact that he keeps thinking about it indicates otherwise. </p><p>“<em>Richard Tozier! </em>”</p><p>Startled, Richie blinks, looking up from where he’d been scrolling mindlessly through his phone, lost in thought, over at Eddie in the bed next to him. They don’t usually go to bed together—Richie likes to stay up late, and Eddie can’t stay up past ten, physiologically—but tonight, for once, they are. “Oh. Sorry, what?”</p><p>“What’s up with you?” Eddie asks with a frown, Tesla manual resting flat on his chest, as he peers over at Richie cautiously. “You’ve been weird all day.”</p><p>“I’m always weird.”</p><p>“Weirder.”</p><p>“Not on purpose.”</p><p>Eddie squints at him. “Is this about this morning?” he asks, and when Richie hesitates, he gasps. “It <em> is! </em> You were totally pissed! I fucking knew it—”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Richie protests, reaching up to scrub at his face. “I’m not pissed! I told you I wasn’t!”</p><p>“Well, if you’re not pissed, what the fuck is this all about,” Eddie says insistently, manual dropping with a muted thud to the mattress as he rolls over to give Richie a closer look. “You’ve said two sentences to me all day, and <em> one </em> of them was to ask if I had any darks to throw in with your laundry, which is like, so unlike you—”</p><p>“I wasn’t pissed!” Richie groans, dropping his hands. “I was, like, the opposite of pissed. Okay? That’s it.”</p><p>Eddie goes quiet. He can feel the weight of his gaze on him, as Eddie processes that, until finally, he speaks. “What’s that supposed to mean.”</p><p>“It means what it sounds like it means!” Richie mumbles, worrying at a fraying bit of yarn from the blanket, and then when Eddie continues to stare, giving him the space to continue, he forges on. “It means I liked it.”</p><p>A silence stretches out, and Richie keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling above him. He doesn’t know why this is embarrassing, but it is, profoundly so; maybe it’s because he’s always been Eddie’s (enthusiastic) tour guide to gay sex, and this is a marked reversal. </p><p>“So...you liked not coming. Is what you’re saying?” Eddie ventures, and Richie sighs, loudly. </p><p>“I don’t know! I guess so! It’s stupid, I mean, you can forget about it—”</p><p>“So you didn’t jerk off or anything, after?” Eddie interrupts him, and there’s curiosity, there—and not necessarily the sort of curiosity that would make Richie feel like he’s some sort of freakish specimen on display, either. Not particularly clinical. Just general curiosity. Friendly. </p><p>“No,” Richie answers, warily, glancing over at Eddie for the first time. His face—usually so easy to read—is impassive, eyes black in the dim light cast off of the lamp behind him. </p><p>“Huh,” Eddie says, slowly, considering it as Richie stares. He pauses, like he’s just barely teetering on the edge of saying something else—before then picking up the manual again, attention ambling off, back in the direction of overpriced electric cars. “Good to know.”</p><p>“Happy to, uh. Inform you,” Richie says awkwardly, and Eddie doesn’t respond. Already absorbed in his reading, apparently, and that makes Richie feel...well, a number of ways. Relieved. Not embarrassed, exactly, but—</p><p>—maybe a little disappointed, that Eddie’s treated it like a discussion over the weather.</p><p>It’s an hour before Eddie falls asleep reading, the manual flopping down against his face, and Richie removes it and turns out the light. They go to sleep, and that’s that, Richie’s pretty sure. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Richie blows Eddie in the morning—Eddie sprawled half off the bed, Richie kneeling on the floor, one hand gripping his thigh to keep his legs parted. Richie likes morning sex a little bit more than Eddie does, probably; he likes Eddie like this, sleepy and warm and easy, not quite alert and self-conscious enough to think to cover his mouth to stifle himself when he comes down Richie’s throat with a whimper. </p><p>Richie swallows, and when Eddie’s through—<em> really </em> through—he pulls off of him. </p><p>“Morning,” he rasps, and Eddie props himself up a little more, peering down at him. </p><p>“Morning,” Eddie echoes lazily, studying him, and he’s glorious in the morning light spilling in through the window. Richie wants, very much, to kiss him. He surges up, and—</p><p>—and sinks back down again, impeded by Eddie’s foot when he drops it to toe him back down, somewhere between gentle and firm. </p><p>Perplexed, Richie stares. This is the part where Eddie will jerk him off, usually, or something, and <em> probably </em> not let him kiss him before he’s brushed his teeth, but he’ll let him, sometimes. </p><p>Eddie shows no indication of that particular inclination now. The fact that Richie’s hard from blowing Eddie appears to have gone entirely unnoticed, actually, because Eddie bends to tug his briefs back up instead, wriggling his hips a little to get them back on properly, and Richie swallows. </p><p>“Did you pack?” Eddie asks, and it’s such a nonsequitur that it takes Richie a second to put two and two together—did he pack, he’s going to the airport today, he’s going on tour, yes, right—and half a second to lose that again entirely when Eddie drops his leg to nudge his socked foot against Richie’s erection, straining at Richie’s sweatpants. </p><p>Richie swears, startled, <em> hard</em>. He’s not really into feet, per se—and Eddie isn’t either, he’s pretty sure—but Eddie’s got a good grip on just the right amount of pressure, not nearly enough to be satisfying, just barely enough to be maddening. Just enough to make Richie arch up against it, helplessly. It takes a second for him to realize that Eddie’s waiting for some sort of a verbal response.</p><p>“<em>What </em>?” Richie asks dazedly, and Eddie frowns above him, imperious.</p><p>“Did you pack for your trip,” he says again. “You always leave it to the last minute.”</p><p>Had Richie packed for his trip. “Yep,” he lies. He has no idea; presently, he’s only vaguely aware of his own middle name, with what Eddie’s doing to him. He exhales shakily, cants his hip up, grinding up against the bit of contact he’s getting, and—</p><p>—and Eddie pulls his foot back a little too far for Richie to chase. “I know you didn’t,” Eddie explains. “That question was rhetorical. Go pack. I’m not FedExing your shit to you like last time.”</p><p>“Eddie,” Richie says helplessly.</p><p>“Richie,” Eddie says patiently. </p><p>“You’re not gonna…” Richie ventures, and when he says it—he isn’t reproachful, per se. Curious is a better descriptor. Even so, Eddie hesitates, reading him in in earnest this time, and Richie can see the cogs turning in his head: had he gone too far. Is this okay. </p><p>Richie gives Eddie’s thigh a reassuring rub—maybe a <em> lingering </em> rub. “No,” Eddie says, finally. “It’s not going to kill you.” </p><p>And that’s right: it isn’t going to kill him. It’s just <em> uncomfortable</em>, particularly because he hadn’t gotten off yesterday, but again, there’s something deeply satisfying about it. Nonetheless, Richie groans, dropping his head to press his forehead to Eddie’s thigh. “You <em> might </em> kill me,” he mumbles. </p><p>“You’re not going to die from having a boner.” Eddie rakes his fingers through Richie’s hair in a passing caress before pushing him off of him, getting up to go about his Eddie morning routine, something that Richie can recite backwards and forwards now. He’ll go to wash his face, first; then he’ll floss. Then he’ll brush his teeth. That’s just the start of it. </p><p>“You can!” Richie exclaims. “God, I can’t believe we’re—collectively—paging Dr. Tozier, for once, but you totally can, you know, the, like, if you have an erection lasting four or more hours, call your doctor immediately, those commercials—”</p><p>“Okay,” Eddie calls, his voice echoing from the bathroom. Faintly, Richie can hear him running the tap. “If you think you’re going to die, you can jerk off. Go pack for now and you’ll probably forget about it.”</p><p>Eddie’s wrong. Richie doesn’t forget about it, but he doesn’t die, and he settles down, at least, which turns out to be enough. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He finds Eddie in the kitchen later, juicing celery with a methodological sort of grimness; when Richie sees him do this, every weekend, he’s often reminded of the guy feeding a body into the woodchipper part-by-part in <em> Fargo</em>. Richie drinks it at least twice a month, with great disgust, but with how much Eddie goes on about its health benefits, he figures that it adds back six or seven months’ worth of lifespan he’s squandered from living the way he has, at least.</p><p>Eddie’s dressed for the day in a neat blue t-shirt and khaki pants, casual for him, and as Richie looks at him there stuffing probably three thousand dollars worth of celery into a machine that grinds them up into a disgusting, pulpy mash, it reminds him how he loves him. <em> I get this every day</em>, Richie thinks, coming up to wind an arm around Eddie’s waist as he watches him work diligently, with the sort of savage intensity that gets his brows drawn down to his eyes. <em> I get this all the time.  </em></p><p>“Want some?” Eddie asks, distractedly, and Richie makes a face. </p><p>“Tastes like piss.”</p><p>“Your loss.”</p><p>“It would be my loss if I enjoyed the taste of piss, I guess,” Richie says, which finally earns him the look of disgust that he’s after. </p><p>Eddie’s through with the celery and as he takes his mug out from under it, it sloshes with a faintly disgusting sound. The two of them look at it, and as the seconds tick on Richie knows they’re both thinking about piss. </p><p>“It’s just bitter,” Eddie mutters, but when he finally takes a sip of it, he does it gingerly. “It’s good for you.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m sure,” Richie says with a grin. He doesn’t want to go. It’s funny—or maybe not—but after Derry, comedy’s just gotten harder. It had been easier when he could coast on by on other people’s material, and it had been easier when he hadn’t had anyone who wasn’t worth leaving for long, lonely stretches in hotel rooms and airports. </p><p>“I’ll drive you to the airport,” Eddie offers, and while some might see that as an act of gallantry—and it is, probably, on some level—Richie knows Eddie and he knows that Eddie likes to drive people in the airport in the same way that some people like to go rollercoasters, so it isn’t an entirely altruistic impulse. </p><p>And Richie loves him, and Richie would follow him to the ends of the <em> Earth</em>, but Richie also wants to stick around for the next forty years of loving Eddie, and so here, he’s hesitant. “No, I mean. You don’t <em> have </em> to, darling, wonderful boy,” Richie hastens to reassure him, and Eddie rolls his eyes but leans into Richie when he bends to kiss the top of his head. “And I mean, I wouldn’t want to keep you from, uh. Weekend vacuuming.”</p><p>Weekend vacuuming, Richie has learned, over the course of his time with Eddie, is to weekday vacuuming like hockey is to baseball. There are similarities, but it’s an entirely different game with an entirely different set of rules. “I already did weekend vacuuming. I did it last night,” Eddie says, wriggling free finally so that he can retrieve a banana from the fruit bowl on the table. “C’mon. It’s fine. I’m not gonna be able to see you for, like, a month.”</p><p>“Fine,” Richie says, because he’s lived through death by clown twice; he’ll probably survive a little bit of Kaspbrak airport driving. He crosses his arms, leaning back against the island as he watches Eddie peel and cut up the banana, which is a shame, because that’s the least fun way for him to eat it. “You could come out,” he ventures, hopefully. “Meet me in Minneapolis. Two weeks in, like I told you.”</p><p>“Can’t,” Eddie says distractedly. “Work shit.” Banana cutting through with, he tosses the peel and sets it on the table before taking a seat—although there’s a hesitation, and then he looks back up at Richie, returning his full attention to him, finally. “So it’s like a <em> thing </em> for you, huh?”</p><p>“Minneapolis?” Richie says, stupidly. </p><p>“<em>No, </em>dumbass. Last night. This morning.”</p><p>It clicks in Richie’s head, belatedly, and he groans, tipping his head back. “God. Are we still on that?”</p><p>“I’m just curious. I like to know things about you,” Eddie says, tersely, telling him off even as he’s telling him, in different words, how he loves him, which might actually explain a few things about this thing he’s developed. “C’mon.”</p><p>“Okay! Yes, I guess this is a thing for me,” Richie sighs. “Just, like—I don’t know. The, uh. <em>Anticipation</em> is as exciting for me as the, uh, <em>event</em>, and the anticipation lasts longer, so…”</p><p>“Huh.” Eddie mulls that over, popping a piece of banana in his mouth. He’s using a fork to eat the pieces of banana, which Richie is fairly certain is a marker of psychopathic behavior. “How long do you think you could last?”</p><p>Richie blinks. “What?”</p><p>“<em>You know</em>,” Eddie continues, gesturing with his fork. “While you’re on tour, maybe we should see, is all I’m saying.”</p><p>He’s talking about this like it’s the weather again. “You mean like, without…” Richie ventures, helplessly, and Eddie nods. </p><p>“If I told you to. Do you think you could try?”</p><p>Richie swallows, considers that as the prospect of the month ahead looms over him. A month is a long time—thirty days. He’s not twenty anymore, but he’s still pretty regular with his urges nonetheless; even if Eddie won’t be around, he’s still got plenty of Eddie-centric material to work off of, mentally. </p><p>But he’d said <em> try</em>, Eddie had, and he’s watching him now, expectantly. “Yeah,” Richie answers, finally. </p><p>“Well then I’m telling you to. Right now,” Eddie says, nonchalant as he stabs at another bit of banana with his fork, like that’s that.</p><p>And it is, more or less. They actually do talk about the weather next. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Eddie drives like he’s furious that Pennywise didn’t finish the job with him, and he screams himself hoarse at an SUV that veers into Eddie’s lane, but they somehow manage to make it to the airport in one piece. Eddie pulls into the dropoff lane, and they pause, looking at each other.</p><p>“I’m really gonna miss you,” Eddie mumbles forlornly—because he gets like this, occasionally, rare flashes of his heart on his sleeve. Moved, a little, Richie catches his face in his both hands and kisses him. </p><p>“I’m gonna miss you too, dude,” Richie says gently once they’re finished. “Let’s—”</p><p>It’s at that precise moment that an airport guard decides to rap on the window sternly in an effort to get them to move along, and Eddie bristles, practically leaping to roll the window down.</p><p>“Hey. <em>Asshole</em>!” Eddie snaps. “The sign says <em>five minutes</em>. We got here at seven fifty four, by my dashboard clock it’s <em>seven fifty six</em>, given the fact that that’s with integrated 4G connectivity, that means that right now, we’re left with <em>precisely</em>—”</p><p>“Eddie! Eds. Hey,” Richie says hastily, stretching to pat Eddie’s cheek—not roughly, just enough to catch his attention. The airport attendant is already backing away, anyway, hands up in submission, but Richie would rather not squander any of his two minutes and change left with Eddie breaking up a fight if he decides he ought to leap up and out of the car over this. “I should go, anyway, I have to figure out what gate I’m at. Don’t do anything crazy while I’m gone, okay? Don’t leave me for Ben. I’d be heartbroken.”</p><p>“I won’t leave you for Ben,” Eddie says, his attention begrudgingly returned to Richie. He leans into Richie’s touch a little as he drags his thumb over the scar on his cheek, just a silver sliver now, faint. “He’s so hot, though.”</p><p>“And so sensitive,” Richie says. “That’s why I’d be heartbroken. I’ve been into him for, like, thirty years. I’m really just waiting for him to give me a chance.”</p><p>Eddie laughs. “Pretty sure he’s out of both of our leagues, so. Looks like we’re stuck with each other.” He pulls away, reluctantly. “Promise me you’ll call when you land.”</p><p>Richie blinks, surprised. “It’ll be like, two am. You’ll be asleep.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Eddie says, which means that Richie is the love of his life; Eddie follows his bedtime schedule with an almost religious fanaticism. He leans in to kiss Richie, then, pulling back just enough to smile at him. “Be good, okay? I mean it. Behave.”</p><p>And something in the way he says <em> that</em>, it...</p><p>“Well, off I go!” Richie declares, busying himself with thumbing the button for the trunk and hopping out of the car, because he’s <em> not </em> going to walk within any state of visible arousal, and the longer he spends in that car, with Eddie, the more markedly possible that situation becomes. “Loveyoubye,” he tells him, tugging him in for a kiss on his forehead (much to Eddie’s vocal and physical dismay) before he shuts the door. He pulls the brim of his Airport Hat down low over his eyes, takes a breath, and goes to retrieve his suitcase. </p><p>A month. A month is a long time; Richie’s already getting riled up if Eddie so much as smiles at him, and he’s only abstained, as it were, for two <em> days</em>. But he can do it, he’s pretty sure. He’ll be fine, he thinks, as he hoists his suitcase from the trunk and sets it on the ground. It’ll be easy, <em> especially</em>, because Eddie won’t be around, anyway. It’ll be an agony to not see him for a month, but maybe within this specific circumstance, it’s for the best, really—</p><p>“Rich!”</p><p>Halfway to the curb, Richie twists to see that Eddie’s rolled the window down and is beckoning him back. Richie obeys without a thought. </p><p>“I didn’t say I love you too,” Eddie explains as he leans over to speak through the open passenger window, once he’s close enough, and that’s sort of sweet, actually, Richie thinks,  at least until Eddie continues on. “I do. <em> And </em> I was thinking, and you can jerk off, actually, if you want. You just can’t come. I don’t know if that’ll make it easy for you, but—I believe in you, Rich.” Richie stares. He sounds like he’s making a speech; he even does that little karate chop that he does in the air when he’s worked himself up a little bit. “<em>Self control. </em>Maybe you ought to try meditation? Would that help? Anyway. Bye!”</p><p>Eddie grins, and waves, and rolls the window back up. Numbly, Richie steps back onto the curb, nearly stumbling over it on the way, as he watches the Escalade go, signaling off into the thick stream of traffic bustling through LAX. </p><p>Richie watches as it recedes into the distance down the road. Off he goes, further and further, off to terrorize some other poor driver on the way home, probably, until Richie can’t see the car anymore.</p><p>He takes off his jacket and holds it in front of him, awkwardly, before he slinks into the airport entrance. It’s a little too hot to wear it through the terminal, anyway. If it keeps him from being arrested from what’s presently threatening to turn into a public display of lewdness, even better.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Thankfully, or unthankfully, maybe, air travel is a spectacular boner killer. Richie lets himself wonder, just briefly as they’re taking off, if Eddie would ever let him fuck him in a plane bathroom (the answer, he’s pretty sure, is no), but that’s the only point at which he thinks about sex throughout the entire trip. He works a little bit on his Stan/New York routine, and he talks on and off to his neighbor, a spirited seventy-year-old woman who professes to like his rudest material best of all; she’s delighted when he resolves, solemnly, to outdo himself in his next special. Then he sleeps. </p><p>It had been a mistake, as it turned out, because when he finally gets to the hotel—after what feels like a year later—and finally dumps his things on the floor, and finally collapses onto the bed, fully clothed, he’s still groggy and disoriented from what’s probably a disrupted REM cycle, or something, but not <em> quite </em> tired enough to actually fall asleep. </p><p>He sprawls there like a starfish for a few minutes, and thinks about his early call tomorrow. Today, technically speaking. Maybe he ought to cancel the show, he lets himself think. Maybe he ought to fake sick and get on the next flight back to LA. If he leaves right now, he can wait for the first flight out, maybe, and he’ll be home before Eddie’s up, so that he can crawl into bed with him, finding him there, somewhere tangled up all of the blankets that he always kicks off during the night—</p><p><em>Eddie</em>. With a start, Richie remembers that Eddie had said that he could call him, even at an hour like this one, and he’s not about to squander that opportunity. Fumbling for his phone, he dials Eddie’s number and pushes it up against his ear. It’s a little awkward with his face half-mashed into the coverlet, but he listens for the sound of the dial tone, tinny in his ear. </p><p>It rings, and then it rings again. And again. And again, finally, until it goes to voicemail, and Richie frowns. </p><p>He ought to let him be, really—he’s probably passed out, Eddie’s a heavy sleeper now, this far out from Derry, anyway, after all those months of touch-and-go. </p><p>But. </p><p>Richie is also profoundly, objectively, annoying, and a little bit selfish. </p><p>It’s a biological compulsion. It’s not like he can help it.</p><p>He pulls his phone down from his ear and rolls over onto his back, squinting up at the glow coming off of it before beginning to type out a message. Message<em>s</em>, more accurately. Several of them, in succession. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="phone">
  <p class="messagebody">
    <span class="header">Eddie</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">eddie</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">EDDIE</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">E</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">D</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">d</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">D</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">I</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">E</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">wake up</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">wnt to talk 2 u</span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
</div><p>Richie stares, and waits. Until his phone buzzes in his hands, and going off with a ping, abruptly, the sound sudden and jarring and disrupting his thoughts, but it’s what he’s been waiting for, precisely:</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="phone">
  <p class="messagebody">
    <span class="header">Eddie</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">wake up</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">wnt to talk 2 u</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="text">IM SLeeping</span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
</div><p>Victorious, Richie cracks a grin. He’d had every intention of leaving him alone, <em> really</em>, if he hadn’t gotten a response so quickly, but well, he’d gotten one. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="phone">
  <p class="messagebody">
    <span class="header">Eddie</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="text">IM SLeeping</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">i dont think so</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">u cant sleep n type</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">Im onto u my little friend</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">Eddieeeeee</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">eee</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">EEEEEEEEEEEEE</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">eeeeeeee</span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
</div><p> </p><p>He’s six Es deep into another text when the phone goes off shrilly again. This time, it’s a call, and he picks it up on the first ring. </p><p>“<em>You’re so fucking annoying, dude</em>.”</p><p>Eddie’s voice is slurred and slow with tiredness, and Richie’s equal parts overjoyed and guilty to hear it, if he’d genuinely dozed off. </p><p>“You knew what you were signing up for,” Richie says back, stifling a yawn. He’s tired too; it’s still mind-boggling to him, how exhausting it is to sit in a little seat for hours at a time, and he’s been traveling heavily for fifteen or so years. Maybe that’s <em> why </em> it’s so exhausting, although he’s never much liked flying. “You saw my comedy routines, and you were like, I don’t know it yet, but that’s the one I want.”</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, well, I just thought you were some shitty comedian. When you were like, forty minutes deep into the ‘my girlfriend caught me jerking it to her Facebook photos,’ bit never once did I think to myself someday, if I played my cards right, I’d have the privilege of becoming that girlfriend.”</em>
</p><p>“I object to that,” Richie says, fondly. “You’re my <em> boyfriend </em> who doesn’t <em> do </em> social media, and therefore denies me the pleasure of masturbating to his Facebook photos. Which, if you think about it, sort of counts as personal growth.”</p><p><em>“Wow. Ben has nothing on you. Forget that winter embers bullshit, I want a poem from you</em>. <em> What rhymes with masturbate? </em>”</p><p>Richie screws up his face, thinking. “I don’t know. Assassinate? I don’t think that’s, like, the right energy for a sexy poem. Or is it? ‘<em>I think about you when I masturbate</em>/<em>My heart and dick you assassinate</em>…’”</p><p>There’s a silence; Richie pulls his phone back to check, because he’s concerned that that had been Eddie’s cue to hang up, but he’s still on the line, and he speaks, finally. <em> “Is it too late to get someone else to write for you again? Like, was the guy you used blacklisted from the industry after your Netflix special?” </em></p><p>“Oh, I’d <em> never </em> hire a ghostwriter for my poems about jerking off to your pictures,” Richie says, scandalized. “Write what you, know, they say, and I consider myself to be an expert in that particular field, even before I <em> knew </em> I was—”</p><p>“—<em>God </em>—”</p><p>“Okay, okay.” Richie smiles. “What are you up to?”</p><p>
  <em>"What do you think I was doing? I was waiting for you to call. I’m in bed. This is the latest I’ve ever stayed up. Any other questions or can I sleep now?” </em>
</p><p>That’s profoundly untrue, as Eddie says it whenever the clock inches past nine pm; Richie can’t tell if it’s an Eddie joke or if it’s something he genuinely believes, but either way, he always says it. “I dunno,” Richie says, and just for the hell of it—maybe to get Eddie to hang up on him in a huff—he drops his voice into a wretched Southern drawl. “What’re you wearing?”</p><p>There’s a pause, like Eddie’s either thinking, or checking. <em> “I’m wearing socks...” </em></p><p>“Who wears socks to bed? Sometimes I worry about you, Eddie, mentally—”</p><p>
  <em>"—shut up. And, uh. Underwear. And a shirt.” </em>
</p><p>This is a joke, right? They’re just joking around, like they usuallly do. Richie thinks of Eddie in his underwear and his shirt—and his socks—all alone in their bed, the dim light from the lamp on the bedside table. Richie’s mouth is dry, suddenly; his free hand slides up to rest on his stomach, over his shirt, the tips of his fingers just barely brushing against his bare skin where it’s ridden up a little. </p><p>“You suck at this,” Richie says, wringing every ounce of nonchalance that he can out of this that he can. “What kind of underwear? What kind of shirt? Give me something to work with.” </p><p>“I’m wearing...what am I wearing. The t-shirt with the three horses on it. I think it’s yours.”</p><p>“Three Horse Moon,” Richie offers, a little weakly. Eddie in his shirt. <em> His </em> shirt. </p><p>
  <em>“The socks are black.”</em>
</p><p>Richie pinches at his nose. “All your socks are black.”</p><p><em>“No, not some of my business socks. Anyway, black underwear, too. The boxer briefs.” </em> Richie thinks of Eddie in <em> Richie’s </em> shirt, in the tight black boxer briefs that he likes, cradling the phone in his hand, all alone in the dark house. There’s another pause. <em> “You want me to really give you something to work with?”</em></p><p>Richie’s fingers twitch. “Yeah?”</p><p><em>“I was thinking about…” </em> There’s a soft sort of sound on the other end, like Eddie’s shifting in the bed; maybe he’s rolled over onto his back. <em> “I was thinking about when we came back from the afterparty for that movie Bill did last fall.”</em></p><p>“Oh. Bill’s weird furry movie?</p><p><em>“Shut up. That’s not—we talked about this, I explained it to you, it wasn’t a weird furry movie, that was all a metaphor. That’s not the point,” </em> Eddie hisses, and Richie knows it’s not the point, because he knows what Eddie’s getting to; he remembers this part well enough, in far more detail than he remembers Bill’s weird furry movie. <em> “Anyway. We had way too much to drink, which is like, so unlike me, I don’t know what I was thinking—”</em></p><p>“And we were in the Uber,” Richie supplies, to bridge over the hemming and hawing, he hopes, although that’s probably a mistake. He’s supposed to last a month, here. He can’t have phone sex night one. He shouldn’t. </p><p><em>“And we were in the Uber.” </em> Eddie’s voice is halting, now. Hesitant. <em> “And you kept touching me.”</em></p><p>And here—he has to be imagining it, the strain in Eddie’s voice, because surely he wouldn’t, but...maybe he <em> is</em>, Richie thinks. </p><p>Maybe he is, Richie hopes. </p><p>“You looked good,” Richie mumbles, hand slipping down to toy with the button of his jeans. He shouldn’t, obviously, and he <em> won’t</em>, but. He can mete out a certain amount of thinking about it, he’s sure. “That suit that you had on.”</p><p>There’s another pause as Eddie mentally flicks back through his wardrobe. “<em>I looked like an insane person.” </em></p><p>Richie laughs. “It was <em> normal red</em>, not, like, neon orange with dicks on it,” he says. Not even red, technically speaking; oxblood, or some other pretentious fashion word for something that was more or less red. Flashy for Eddie, though, either way—his suits are always neat and well-fitting, although not <em> quite </em> as well-fitting as his suit that evening, but usually dark, most importantly. Black or navy. Occasionally gray. It had been a wonder that Bev had managed to coax him into something outside of his comfort zone. </p><p>Worth it, though, because he’d looked good in it. Nearly as good as he’d looked out of it.</p><p>“<em>I wanted to blow you in the back of the Uber</em>,” Eddie informs him matter-of-factly, the verbal equivalent of a crack to the head with a baseball bat, and Richie promptly drops his phone. </p><p>“Jesus Christ,” Richie gasps, once he’s recovered it. “<em>Eddie</em>.”</p><p><em>"I’d never, obviously,” </em> And Eddie’s voice on the phone catches; he exhales shakily, before forging on. “<em>That’s like, totally rude, first off, and public indecency. I’d get put on, ah—some kind of sex offender list—” </em></p><p>“Okay,” Richie says hastily, cradling the phone to his ear. “Let’s, uh, skip the risk assessing part of this—”</p><p>“Shut up,” Eddie bites out, and that shouldn’t get Richie hard, but it does, anyway, something in the way he says it. Richie shuts up. “<em>Anyway</em>. You’d have to keep quiet. Could you keep quiet?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Richie breathes, the first time he’s ever insinuated anything along those lines, but really, he’d agree to just about anything at this point. He swallows, presses the heel of his palm to where he’s hard, straining at his jeans. It’s uncomfortable—it’s <em> maddening</em>, with the lurid image that Eddie’s painting in his head. He wonders if Eddie would let him touch him; if he’d let him sink his fingers into his hair as he did it, if he kept quiet, if the tinny sound from the radio would be loud enough to cover up the wet sounds from Eddie’s mouth. “I could.”</p><p><em>“Good,” </em> Eddie says, breathlessly, and Richie squeezes his eyes shut. <em> “Then I would.” </em> Another beat before he ventures on, his voice low. “<em>I think I’d swallow, Richie. I’d have to. There’d be nowhere else for it to go.”</em></p><p>“Eddie,” Richie says, helpless as he envsisions it; in his ear, Eddie’s breathing is ragged. “I, ah—I <em> can’t</em>, I’m gonna—</p><p><em>“Then don’t,” </em> Eddie says, cruelly, terribly. <em> “Self control, Rich, remember? Are you touching yourself?”</em></p><p>Richie snatches his hand away guiltily, like Eddie can see, although he can’t. Although Richie wishes that he could. “No?” he ventures, weakly. Even if Eddie had given him permission to do it. Now, he wonders if that had been a test. </p><p>Apparently satisfied with that answer, or too distracted to care, Eddie moves on without interrogating him further. “And you looked good.” Eddie groans, his words coming rushed, clipped, hasty—for a second, Richie is a little bewildered, until he continues on to clarify. “In your suit. So hot, Richie, your shoulders—”</p><p>“My <em> what?”</em> Richie asks, but there’s no verbal response. He listens to his breathing, the harsh rise and fall of it, a stifled moan. Muffled, then, like he’d set the phone aside, or he’d covered his mouth to keep himself quiet, and Richie lets himself imagine that—Eddie in bed, in one of Richie’s shirts, jerking himself off, one hand pressed tight to his mouth to keep himself quiet. Neat and repressed, even like that; some old habits are hard to shake. </p><p>Richie shuts his eyes. Eddie’s breath catches, abruptly; and then again; and then Richie knows he’s done. </p><p>He keeps his eyes shut, most of his focus narrowing in on the five pain points of his fingers as he digs them into his chest. Not much of a hurt, but enough to keep himself focused on anything apart from how much he wants to touch Eddie, how much he’ll settle, at least, for being able to touch himself as he listens. </p><p>He’s not sure how much time passes as Eddie comes down from it, but it does. </p><p><em>“Ugh. Gross,” </em> Richie hears, distantly, like Eddie’s set the phone down and is talking to himself. There’s a few minutes in between in which Richie can hear a few miscellaneous noises—some clattering around in what sounds like the bedroom, the sound of the tap running. Until finally, there’s Eddie’s voice again—and he sounds sated, a little drowsy. <em> “You didn’t come, did you?</em></p><p>Richie opens his eyes, finally. He takes off his glasses, and pinches at the bridge of his nose. “What do you think? No.”</p><p><em>“Good boy,” </em> Eddie says, stifling a yawn, and it’s a <em> joke</em>, Richie’s pretty sure, but in the way that he is right now, it makes him shiver, especially with what comes next. <em> “Just think about it—I bet the anticipation will make it really good! Whenever you, you know. Get there. This is kind of a learning lesson.”</em></p><p>“You’re evil, really,” Richie groans, resigning himself, finally, to the fact that he’s not going to come tonight. He sits up to peer at himself in the mirror—he looks like a wreck. Faintly flushed, a rumpled mess from all that air travel, presently subject to what appears to be—what <em> is </em>—a painfully uncomfortable situation in his jeans. “That’s the only thing that I’m learning.”</p><p>“<em>A</em><em>ll I suggested was that you should try</em>.” Eddie’s voice sounds distant again; he has him on speaker, and Richie wonders if he’s changing again, until he decides to steer his thoughts from that direction entirely. Not helpful for the state that he’s in. <em> “A month’s a long time. It’s up to you. But okay, whatever. I have to go, it’s so late.” </em></p><p>Beyond the temptations of the flesh that he’s currently dealing with, here, a sadness settles over him to hear it. He wants to be there with Eddie, getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth next to him, gamely tolerating his bitching when he doesn’t go for the dentist-mandated two minutes, like he isn’t well aware. </p><p>It’s the nature of the game, though, Richie’s career. Richie knows this; Eddie knows it, too. He wonders, idly, if there’s a way to fix that—pilot season’s always coming up. If he can get a writing gig, maybe there’s a solution there.</p><p>“Take a cold shower,” Eddie suggests, off speaker again. “Maybe that’ll help.”</p><p>Richie scowls, putting him on speaker so that he can get up and change for bed. “Oh, fuck you.”</p><p>“Not yet,” Eddie says, and equal parts startled and pleased, as Richie always is when Eddie decides to make a joke, Richie laughs. “Get some sleep. I love you.”</p><p>“Love you too,” Richie echoes, because he does. </p><p>“Night.”</p><p>With that, Eddie hangs up, and just like that, the hotel room is three thousand times lonelier, like a lifeline to the outside world has been abruptly snipped. No one to mute the television for, like he usually does when he needs it to sleep; no one to bitch at him about not having brought an extra pillow to use in place of the hotel linens. Just Richie in a hotel room, with his thoughts, what’s now settled down into a semi, and some leftover peanuts from the airplane stuffed somewhere in his backpack. </p><p> </p><p>The cold shower probably isn’t necessary, at that point, but Richie does it anyway, just to be safe. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The first few days are something of an adjustment period. It’s hard to throw himself into his work when, with an alarming frequency, <em> he’s </em> hard; Richie’s reminded of when he’d been a young, red-blooded college freshman, willing and quite capable of getting stiff at a stiff breeze, except this time it’s <em> worse</em>, having to smile and nod his way through some local interview or radio phoner and ignore the ceaseless chant of EDDIE EDDIE EDDIE EDDIE at the back of his head, and the <em> visuals</em>, in lurid detail. </p><p>But after three or four days, it fades into the background of Richie’s cognizance, not <em> gone</em>, not entirely, just a faint awareness, the equivalent of a workplace sign tacked to the wall reading, in neat letters, but <em> small </em> print, IT HAS BEEN (5) DAYS SINCE OUR LAST ORGASM. Which is good. It’s been a trial, patching up the mess that he’d made of his career when he’d gotten that call from Mike—or, worse still, when he’d cancelled his tour promptly after Derry with no apparent excuse, because he couldn’t exactly hop on to Instagram Live and explain to everyone that he needed a little bit of a break because he’d committed a murder and also a clown tried to eat him—and he needs a little bit of good PR. </p><p>“They’re going to get started in fifteen,” Bel—his publicist, in possession of both a tremendous amount of patience and a neat, slicked-back ponytail today—says to him as he stretches out in the green room, trying to get comfortable in a profoundly uncomfortable plastic chair. “Do you need anything?” she asks, hovering. </p><p>“Some blow?”</p><p>“None of that in the interview, Richie!” Bel says, as cheerfully as she says anything else, although there’s an edge behind it that makes Richie hold his hands up in surrender. She’s an excellent publicist—bright, tenacious, charismatic, sweet, and the sort of person who occasionally gets into physical fights while out drinking when provoked, something that Richie himself has personally witnessed on two occasions. He likes her plenty.</p><p>But she disappears to speak with the producer, and so Richie’s left alone. </p><p>As the minutes tick by, Richie—desperate for any sort of a distraction—pulls out his phone so that he can scroll through Instagram mindlessly. Four photos of Bev and Ben’s dog, taken by Ben; and then on Bill’s instagram, a blurry, poorly taken photo of Mike at karaoke, nonetheless taken in a way that makes it clear that whoever’s behind the camera loves him very much. Richie’s old college girlfriend with her two kids. His manager desperately trying to drum up enthusiasm for the other failing comic he manages, complete with an endorsement from Richie that he’d given under duress in the caption (“He’s funny!” - Richie Tozier). Eddie caught in a genuine smile. </p><p><em>Eddie </em> smiling<em>. </em>Eddie leaning back against Bev’s kitchen counter, spatula in hand. He’s dressed casually in jeans and a henley shirt, the one Richie likes, blue-and-grey, the one that clings to Eddie’s front like it’s painted on, and Richie swallows as he looks at it, transfixed like it’s explicit pornography.</p><p>Whatever he’s cooking, Richie knows, is probably inedible—Eddie’s alright in the kitchen but it’s only until the stove is involved, and not for lack of trying. But that’s not what’s important here. What’s important here is: although the photo is on Bev’s instagram, she’s tagged an @ekaspbrak76 in it, which is probably Eddie, which means that Eddie has an instagram. </p><p>Eddie has an <em> Instagram</em>. Eddie Kaspbrak, love of Richie’s life, Edward <em> ‘I don’t do social media’ </em> Kaspbrak, a stance he’s always maintained despite his fifty-three one-star Yelp reviews (“that’s totally different”) and his abandoned twitter account with its three irate tweets to the Home Depot brand twitter, the last of which, Richie can faintly recall, ends in YOU DUMBFUCK—suddenly, he’s @ekaspbrak76. </p><p>It’s almost certainly a mistake to do this right before an interview—he’d been doing so well at not getting distracted, having good <em> self control</em>, but now he stares at Eddie in the blue-and-grey Henley like a dog would look at a bone. </p><p>It takes every effort that he has to tear his eyes away from it to tap through to Eddie’s profile, and he’s crestfallen to find that it’s private. He has plenty of photos of Eddie—all tame, but photos nonetheless—but he can see there are twenty-two posts on it. Twenty-two photos of Eddie that Richie, potentially, hasn’t seen. <em> Unreleased </em> Eddie content. He hits the request button. </p><p>“Richie, they’re ready for you,” Bel says, and Richie’s head snaps up as he locks his phone hastily, like she’d just caught him looking at porn. </p><p>“Okay,” Richie says distractedly, his thoughts buzzing like a swarm of bees. “Alright. Let’s do this thing.” He gets to his feet and trails after her as she leads him down the hallway, her heels clicking, as his phone burns a hole in his pocket. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It goes alright. Softball questions, mostly—he’s become an expert in fielding the gay questions, now, as it’s mostly what everyone wants to talk about. No, no one had known, not even his parents. No, he hasn’t really dated until now. Yes, the girlfriend stories were mostly fake, barring his few abortive attempts at heterosexuality. Yes, he’s certainly happier than he’d ever been. </p><p>When he comes out of the interview, though, the troubling thing is that his request is still pending. Richie’s bewildered. Eddie isn’t even at work. It’s a <em> Saturday</em>. He has no excuse. He’s meant to be looking out the window and pining for him, anyway, Richie’s been gone, like, nearly a week. </p><p>“That’s it for today,” Bel is saying. “Tomorrow I’ll meet you at 8 in the hotel lobby, okay? It’s going to be lowkey tomorrow. Super fun.”</p><p>“So fun,” Richie says, distractedly, mostly focused on his phone as he pulls Eddie up in iMessage so that he can text him. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="phone">
  <p class="messagebody">
    <span class="header">Eddie</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">pr 8am tomorrow kill meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee </span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">are u really not going 2 accept my request</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="text">???????????????</span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
</div><p>The questions marks are almost immediate, which is curious, because Eddie somehow has the time to tap out fifteen question marks, while—at the same time—he doesn’t have the time to hit accept on Richie’s follow request. Maybe he doesn’t have push notifications on. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="phone">
  <p class="messagebody">
    <span class="header">Eddie</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="text">???????????????</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">instagram</span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
</div><p>The typing indicator pops up, and then vanishes again, just as quickly; and then there’s radio silence. Richie frowns. </p><p>“Don’t be late, Richie!” Bel says brightly, drawing his attention back to her as Richie shoulders the door open—the <em> or I will cut you </em> is unspoken, but nonetheless there. Richie gives her a little mock salute. </p><p>“Aye aye, captain,” he says. “Scout’s honor. Whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow, and I <em> will </em> shower tonight.”</p><p> </p><p>With that, Richie ducks out into the night, attention already returned to his phone. Eddie hasn’t texted him back yet, nor has he accepted his request. Curious to see if he’s missed the notification, Richie pulls the Instagram app back up—</p><p> </p><p>—and finds that @ekaspbrak76 is no longer. The account, as per Instagram, does not exist. He hadn’t imagined it; Bev’s picture of him still links back to it, which is bizarre. He wouldn’t have just decided to delete it within the past few minutes, unless...</p><p> </p><p>Richie narrows his eyes. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="phone">
  <p class="messagebody">
    <span class="header">Eddie</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">waht the fuck</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">did u just block me?????</span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
</div><p> </p><p>This time, there’s just a few seconds’ delay before Richie gets a response. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="phone">
  <p class="messagebody">
    <span class="header">Eddie</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">waht the fuck</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="breply">did u just block me?????</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="text">:)</span><br/>
<br/>
</p>
</div><p> </p><p>“You little fucker,” Richie hisses, already hitting the call button and holding it up to his ear, quickening his pace in irritation as he stalks down the street, shoulders hunched, one hand stuffed into his jacket pocket. Eddie answers on the fourth ring.   </p><p>“Edward Kaspbrak speaking,” Eddie says, sing-song, like he doesn’t have Richie’s contact saved, and Richie wants to hop on the next flight home so that he can, like...not <em> kill </em> him, obviously, but maybe hide his stupid overpriced $40 shampoo for a few days.</p><p>“You know it’s me, asshole,” Richie says testily. “You can’t just <em> block </em> me.”</p><p>Eddie laughs. <em> “I’m looking out for you, dude,” </em> he says airily, and Richie can hear the clattering of pans in the background; he’s in the kitchen, he’s pretty sure. <em> “You ought to thank me.” </em></p><p>“And why is that, Edward,” Richie mutters. “Enlighten me.”</p><p><em>“Well, you have press early tomorrow,” </em> Eddie explains. “I mean, not <em> early</em>, but 8am is like, Richie early. Maybe I just think you should go to bed on time.”</p><p>He’s made it to his hotel now—it had only been a block or two away. “I’m not following,” Richie groans, rubbing at his eyes under his glasses with his free hand as he heads through the sliding glass doors and then through the lobby. “What the fuck does your Instagram page have to do with me going to bed on time.”</p><p>“<em>I</em><em> don’t want to distract you. There’s some stuff on there you might be interested in</em>,” Eddie says, smugly, and two emotions, powerful and fierce, war for Richie’s attentions within his head as he steps into the elevator; the first the intense desire to fly home so that he can hide Eddie’s $50 conditioner, too, and the second a burning curiosity— <em> what </em> would he be interested in. </p><p>“What the fuck, man,” Richie groans. “So what you’re saying is—you think I’m going to <em> jerk off all night </em> to your pictures, and furthermore, I’d be <em> so </em> exhausted from all that jerking off that I’d sleep through all <em> three </em> of my alarms?”</p><p>The elevator’s sole other occupant—a businessman in his fifties, in a neat gray suit and glasses, gives Richie an alarmed glance, edging to the corner of the elevator. Richie covers the speaker with his hand. </p><p>“It’s a monologue I’m practicing,” he explains to the other man, who continues to stare steadily ahead, eyes desperately fixed on the panel displaying the floor number. “I’m an actor. Experimental theatre. Avant garde.”</p><p>Lucky for him, his floor is the next stop, and the businessman is eager to spring out of it as soon as the doors part, leaving Richie alone.</p><p>“<em>Who was that? </em>”</p><p>“That’s not important. Accept my request, you fuck.”</p><p><em>“How long has it been?” </em> Eddie asks, still nonchalant. Richie pauses.</p><p>“How long has <em> what </em> been?” he asks, listlessly, uselessly. He knows what he’s asking.  </p><p><em>"You left home a little more than a week ago,” </em> Eddie says; the clattering in the background has ceased, like he’s paused what he’s doing for this. Richie thinks about him in their kitchen, leaning back against the counter, hands wet from the dishes he’d probably just been doing. Eddie’s voice pitches low when he continues on. <em> “You fucked me the day before that, in the shower. Remember?” </em></p><p>“Yeah,” Richie says, mouth dry, suddenly. He remembers—and he’s remembering <em> now </em> as he steps through the elevator doors and slinks down the hallway towards his room, embarrassed, a little, to be talking about something like this in a public place. To be thinking about this. Eddie in the shower with him, fresh from a run like he’d been that day, exhausted from it in a way that had left him pliant and loose-limbed, willing to let Richie maneuver him into place. Not as impatient as he usually is during sex. Willing to let Richie take his time, fucking into him nice and slow. </p><p>Richie’s palms are slippery with sweat. <em> “So like, ten days,” </em> Eddie remarks. <em> “How’s it going?” </em></p><p>“What?” Richie asks hoarsely, fumbling with the key card to his room. Eddie tipping his head to the side as Richie grazed the curve of his neck with his teeth. He’s made it to his room just in time; as soon as he’s inside, he shuts the door with a slam, leaning back heavily against it, fumbling with his free hand for the button on his jeans so that he can clumsily take himself in hand.</p><p>He gives himself a stroke, and then another, and forces himself to still, cock hard and heavy in his hand, just from a minute or two of thinking about fucking Eddie.</p><p><em>“The waiting. Do you want it really bad?” </em> Richie squeezes his eyes shut. </p><p>“I do want it that bad,” he says, haltingly, and he <em> does</em>, he’s never wanted anything more. He wants Eddie here; he wants Eddie, period. “I want you. You know.”</p><p><em>“I’ll unblock you after your interview,” </em> Eddie says, and Richie can hear the clatter of dishes again, like he’s resumed his housework. <em> “I mean, maybe that’ll help. Or maybe not.”</em></p><p>Richie’s beginning to think that perhaps Eddie had a point. This is difficult enough with just Eddie’s voice; Richie can’t imagine what it would be like paired with a visual. Not that Eddie has nudes on Instagram, obviously—even if that was allowed, Richie’s pretty sure that Eddie doesn’t have nudes, <em> period</em>, he can’t take a photo for his life—but at this point, it could be a blurry shot of Eddie from a hundred feet away like Bigfoot and it would still, quite easily, get him going. </p><p>Richie gives himself another pump, and then one more, jerking up into his own fist reflexively; it makes him groan, and he bites his lip, hard, every dumb, base instinct that he has screaming at him to continue. On the other line, there’s silence. </p><p>It takes nearly every ounce of willpower that Richie has to take his hand off of himself—and all of it to keep himself from returning it. He leans back against the door, tipping his head back with a dull thump. “Tell me about something not sexy,” Richie manages, hoarsely. “Now.”</p><p><em>“Hmm.” </em> Eddie thinks that over. <em> “Did you know there’s, like, four thousand times more bacteria in the carpet than there is a toilet?”</em></p><p>Richie squints. “No. Why would I know that. Why would I commit that<em> specifically </em> to memory, like, would it really make a difference if it was a hundred times, or—”</p><p><em>“It makes a difference, Richie, because like I’ve told you, about forty-seven times, you have to vacuum more than once a week. It looks fine to me,” </em> Eddie says, in a weird sort of voice, and with a start, Richie realizes that that’s meant to be him. <em> “So you say, like that matters, it’s, like, a hygienic thing. It doesn’t matter if it looks like it’s fine, it’s disgusting.”</em></p><p>“Yeah, but you vacuum, like, three thousand times a day,” Richie says. “I mean, what if all that bacteria builds up your immune system? Maybe it’s <em> worse </em> to vacuum that much.”</p><p><em>“That’s not how that works!” </em> Eddie says, hotly, and Richie’s not hard anymore, really; instead, he’s missing arguing like this in person, missing the sound of the vacuum starting up when he’s trying—in vain—to sleep on the couch. <em> “You know it’s not how it works, you’re just saying that because you know it’ll set me off—” </em>Eddie’s probably started to pace.</p><p>“Okay. Congratulations,” Richie sighs, doing up his jeans again with only a fleeting sense of temptation. “You’ve killed my boner, successfully. More or less.” </p><p><em>“I vacuum a normal amount,”</em> Eddie mutters, still sore.</p><p>“I wish you were here,” Richie says, quietly, and Eddie had been teetering on the edge of giving Richie another talking-to, but that—Richie is pretty sure—diverts his attention.</p><p><em> “I wish you were here,” </em> Eddie ventures, and he’s probably right most of all, between the two of them, like he usually is. Richie wishes he was there; back home with Eddie, and all the bacteria in the carpets. <em> “That’s like one week down, at least,” </em>Eddie continues.</p><p>“One week down,” Richie echoes agreeably, edging close enough to the bed so that he can more or less pitch himself on top of it, face-first, even if that’s awkward with his glasses, and even if a voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like the one that’s on the phone with him shouts something about how disgusting hotel room comforters are. </p><p>Eddie, apparently, has trained him well. <em> Is </em> training him well, he thinks, and there’s another dull throb of heat. </p><p>“Three weeks to go,” he adds, tiredly. An eternity’s worth of days. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>At least on record, Eddie hadn’t come to a conclusion as to whether or not he’d decided to unblock Richie, eventually, but Richie gets his answer either way when he’s coming offstage after his gig the following night, and that little <em> ping </em> on his phone as @ekaspbrak76 accepts his follow request and then follows him back.</p><p>The rest of his team is, apparently, intent on dragging him out for drinks afterwards, but Richie can’t focus on much of anything apart from the twenty-two photos of Eddie now available for his viewing. Even if some of said photos he’s probably seen before; in fact, he’s sure he’s probably seen most of them. Eddie isn’t really in a habit of taking pictures of himself—not out of self-consciousness, he just rarely gets the impulse.</p><p>And as Richie scrolls through them, there at the bar in the crowd, he knows that he <em> has </em> seen some of these. Eddie peering at a pint of beer filled to its brim, pressed between his palms, with some trepidation, clearly working out the best way to drink it without mussing his clothes. Mike had taken that one; they’d all gone to Fire Island last summer, and eventually, Richie remembers, he’d asked for a straw, something they’d all made fun of him for for the three hous following. Then, Eddie at his office holiday party at Tao—no plus ones permitted, so Richie hadn’t gone, but his assistant had managed to drag him into the photobooth, which means that Richie had been treated to the sight of Eddie in black and white, wine drunk and laughing, somewhere between happy and embarrassed. Richie and Eddie, crowded together in a Target, necks craned over a box that Eddie has clutched in his hands. </p><p>It had been a Hot Wheel, Richie remembers now. Eddie has his mouth open; they’re mid-argument, but over what, Richie can’t remember—both of them look happy, arguing just for the fun of it. </p><p>And there are some that Richie isn’t familiar with. One of them in particular is from that trip to Fire Island, one that Richie hasn’t seen. It’s a day past Eddie’s hesitance about the pint of beer sloshing over onto him; close to dusk, still light enough so that he’s caught in the sun as it glints across the sea.</p><p>He’s on the beach, sprawled across a blanket, dark eyes fixed up on whoever’s taking the photo, waiting patiently for them to finish—or maybe impatiently, from the look on his face. It’s Bev, Richie’s pretty sure, now that he thinks about it, because at that point in the evening, everyone else minus Bev, Bill, and Eddie had forged off on their own various missions and quests (to get more beer from the convenience store before it closed, to get jackets from the AirBnB since the temperature had taken a turn), and Bill is the worst photographer out of all of them.</p><p>And this is a good photo. Eddie’s in Richie’s borrowed hoodie, the one he’d left with him when he’d gone back to retrieve Eddie’s from the house, bare-chested underneath it—and the reason Richie can see that is because it’s mostly unzipped, three quarters of the way down, enough to reveal the way his collarbones dip with how he’s propping himself up, the light dusting of chest hair further down, a smudge of white sunscreen that he hadn’t quite rubbed in well enough, just above his scar. </p><p>And <em> swim shorts</em>, further down. Richie—now in the Uber back from the bar—holds the phone up close to his face, drinking in as much that he can from it, every pixel, every inch. Eddie hadn’t let him put his sunscreen on, even if he’d insisted on doing Richie’s, after Richie had done a poor job of it, which Richie’s pretty sure had only been about twenty-five percent Eddie being a weird little pervert, seventy-five percent typical Eddie sunscreen anxiety. From the picture, Eddie’s done a better job working it into his legs than he had his chest; tanned, stretched out in front of him, soaked with the dull glow of the setting sun as it hits them. </p><p>He has a knee drawn up a little, enough to obscure some of him—some of which, Richie would like to see, desperately—but there’s so much <em> here </em> for Richie to look at, <em> wealth</em>, an embarrassment of riches, that his hands sweat as he hunches over his phone.</p><p>He’ll kill Eddie for this, if this doesn’t kill him first. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“You’re such a fucking cocktease,” Richie groans as soon as he’s back at the hotel, before Eddie can even say hello. </p><p>There’s a long pause. <em> “Me?” </em> Eddie asks, finally, doing his acting, which is always terrible, and it comes out like a parody of innocence, <em> meeeeee? </em></p><p>“Yes, you. I know that shit you were pulling with Instagram. I’m onto you, asshole.”</p><p><em> “Sounds like you’re into me,” </em>Eddie says, smugly—maybe because he’s a brat, maybe because  he knows that Richie will laugh, as he does. </p><p>“I <em> want </em> to get into you,” Richie informs him, and he can <em> hear </em> Eddie roll his eyes through the phone. He shrugs off his jacket, toeing off his shoes. Just because he’s agreed to let Eddie control <em> this </em> aspect of his life remotely doesn’t mean that Eddie can control everything he’s doing; mutinously, he tosses the shoes across the room to land with two thumps on the floor by the bathroom, his jacket following close after. “Let me Facetime you.”</p><p>Eddie processes that request. It’s a fifty-fifty shot, Richie knows; it’s close to Eddie’s bedtime, or more accurately, the thirty minutes or so he portions out to get ready for his bedtime. Tonight, though, Eddie’s benevolence wins out.</p><p><em> “Okay, I’ll get my laptop,” </em> Eddie decides, with finality, and hangs up. Richie’s relieved to hear it. They haven’t been able to see each other—in a sense—in what feels like years and years. </p><p>He drops his phone on the end table. As he goes to retrieve his laptop, and sets it on the desk in front of him so that he can hunch over it to type in his password, he pauses, arrested by the sight of himself in the hotel mirror. Not his best look. Exhausted from a long day of press, and the show after; a shadow of stubble, rumpled hair. His shirt is wrinkled. Richie is beginning to suspect that Eddie is on to something with this whole hanging up clothes thing. </p><p>The rippling sort of sound of someone trying to reach him on Facetime rings out through the air, and Richie’s thoughts scatter. </p><p>When he answers it, the picture is grainy, but there’s Eddie. Freshly showered, hair a little damp, in one of his worn old sweatshirts, threadbare at the sleeves—Richie can’t see them, but he knows this, knows the subsection of Eddie’s wardrobe that he’s portioned out for when there’s a draft and he’s about to go sleep. He’ll take it off before he does, probably. Eddie, particularly when he’s sleeping, runs hot and sweaty. </p><p>Accordingly, he’s got a pair of shorts that he sleeps in—nothing too eye-catching, not like his running shorts, but they make Richie think of that photo of Eddie on the beach, anyway. And he looks tired, but <em> sleepy </em> tired, not exhausted tired, tired in a way that makes Richie want to kiss his forehead and wrap him up in a blanket. </p><p>And Richie misses him. </p><p>“Hey, handsome,” Richie says softly. He’s got the laptop set on their bed, in front of him; Richie had probably called during Eddie’s twenty minutes of reading time post-shower. </p><p><em> “Hi, handsome,” </em> Eddie says back, but with a smile that makes him look fond—maybe enough so that he means it, with Richie’s dark circles and five o’clock shadow and all. </p><p>“So it’s ten cents a minute,” Richie begins in a purr. “And you can call me Crystal.” It’s not a very good joke, but it’s enough so that Eddie gives him a real laugh before a fake one.</p><p>
  <em> “Ha ha. Very funny.” </em>
</p><p>“How was your day?” Richie asks, leaning forward to rest his chin in his palm as he watches Eddie on the screen. “You’re off work this week, right?”</p><p>
  <em> “Yeah. I did a lot of cleaning, which was good to get done—I saw Bill, he says hi. How was your day?” </em>
</p><p>“Long.” Richie pauses; he gives it a good second, like he’s thinking it over, before continuing on, huskily. “<em>Hard</em>.”</p><p><em> “That’s what you want?” </em> Eddie leans back against the pillow, eyeing him. <em> “That’s what this is about?” </em></p><p>Is it? Richie’s not sure—he’s joking, but only halfway. “I’m a man. I have needs.”</p><p><em> “I’ll bet,” </em> Eddie says, and now Richie is a quarter joking, if that, because there’s something in the way that Eddie says it that—the way that he looks at him, dark-eyed, speculative—that makes him fidget in his seat. </p><p>“I want to see you,” Richie says, a little hoarsely, before he can stop himself. Eddie watches him for a few long seconds before his eyes flick down.</p><p><em> “You’re seeing me now.” </em> Eddie has the audacity to glance at his phone, before he continues on, nonchalantly. <em> “You saw me on Instagram.” </em></p><p>“Oh, fuck you.”</p><p><em>“I dunno, Rich. I don’t want to mess this up for you,” </em> Eddie says, a little smugly, and god, Richie’s beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that he’s created a monster. <em> “You haven’t yet, right?”</em></p><p>It’s Richie’s turn to look away; his eyes fall on the desk to the side of him, a little dusty. Eddie would throw a fit. “No,” he answers, finally.</p><p><em> “You’re doing a good job, then. You’re getting close, it’s like...what, two weeks left?” </em> Eddie says, and Richie groans before he’s finished his sentence, burying his face in his hands. Two weeks sounds like at least six years from now. </p><p>“You know, I’m starting to wonder if you like this,” he mumbles into his palms, his voice muffled. He can’t see Eddie, but he can hear him laugh, a tiny sound. When Richie comes back up, his glasses are askew, a little smudged, and perhaps that’s what gives him the courage to forge onwards. “I’ll be fine,” he says. “Take your shirt off.”</p><p><em> “Right now?” </em> Eddie asks, emphasis on the now, like the time makes that a scandalous thing to suggest. Richie squints at him. Genuinely, he can’t work out if this resistance is a part of the game they’re playing—the tease—or an objection to the genuine disruption to Eddie’s (admittedly) iron-clad routine that this is, but Richie figures that if Eddie genuinely wants him to fuck off, he’ll give him the finger and hang up on him.</p><p>“Yes, Eddie,” Richie sighs. “Right now.”</p><p><em> “Right here? I’m reading,” </em>Eddie says, so deliberately primly that he has to be putting this on.</p><p>“Eddie,” Richie says, patiently. “I hate to break it to you, but legend has it that you yourself have been <em> completely </em> naked in that very bed before; maybe even more than once—”</p><p><em> “Okay! Okay,” </em> Eddie says, dropping his book to the side. When he reaches for his sweatshirt, his fingertips grazing the hem, Richie’s eyes are locked on them like he’s starving, although they jump back up to Eddie’s face when they speak. <em> “But you have to keep your hands where I can see them,” </em> Eddie says firmly, his own hands frozen. <em> “The whole time.” </em></p><p>A second or two passes; Eddie keeps still. Richie realizes, finally, that he’s waiting for a response. “Fine,” he says, without having to think about it, because he’d agree to anything, really, at this point. </p><p>So Eddie, finally, takes his sweater off—not particularly gracefully, but Eddie’s a risk analyst, not a stripper, now or ever, Richie’s pretty sure, and either way, the end result is the same: Eddie sans shirt, and now that Richie sees him, it’s <em> better </em> that Eddie’s not particularly practiced at stripping, because it means that pulling it off has left his hair in some state of disarray. </p><p>Cute, Richie thinks, before confusion takes hold of him as Eddie turns his attention to the sweater, fiddling with it. “What are you doing?”</p><p>Eddie fixes Richie with something of a bewildered stare, like it should be obvious. <em> “I’m folding it.” </em></p><p>“You think I’m going to blow my load from <em> this </em>?” Richie asks. “Do you think I’m some kind of laundry folding pervert? Do I still have to keep my hands up here?”</p><p><em>“It’ll get wrinkled!” </em> Eddie insists, like the sweater isn’t probably going into the laundry bin after this anyway, and—it’s a relief, actually, that Richie’s not desperate enough so that Eddie folding his sweater is capable of giving him a stiffy. He’s retained at least some of his dignity, then.</p><p>“You’re a shitty stripper,” Richie grouses. </p><p>
  <em> “Yeah, fuck you.”  </em>
</p><p>But Eddie says that warmly, a little bit; that particular sort of <em> fuck you</em>, the one that means he loves him. Richie’s become an expert at interpreting Eddie’s <em> fuck yous</em>, actually. Just as Stan can tell the difference between a cuckoo and a sparrowhawk, with a single glance, Richie can successfully pick out which Eddie <em> fuck you </em> means that he’s genuinely wrathful and which Eddie <em> fuck you </em> means that Eddie’s loved him all of his life, even when he couldn’t remember it.</p><p>And look—just as Richie would have guessed, Eddie’s leaned back a little, resting against the headboard, and he’s smiling, faintly, arms crossed. A good <em> fuck you </em> after all.</p><p>Richie lets himself take his time as he looks at the rest of him, rationing out shirtless Eddie part by part. The line of his throat, the smudge of his adam’s apple. The dip of his collarbones, the rounded curve of his shoulders, his chest, where his skin turns pink with scarred tissue, his abdomen, where the dark hair resumes its progress down, down, down, disappearing into the waistband of his shorts. </p><p>Richie laces his fingers together in front of him.</p><p>Eddie reaches for something off-camera; when his hand comes back into the picture, he’s got his hydroflask, and he takes a long drink from it as Richie stares. Richie’s pretty sure he’s not doing this on purpose—Eddie’s neurotic about his water intake, and Eddie’s just about hit his self imposed water drinking cut-off time before he goes to sleep, which is a thing he has, which is a thing that Richie, inexplicably, has learned about.</p><p>Eddie swallows, and sets the hydroflask down with a clink, before wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. <em> “So you saw my pictures on Instagram,” </em> Eddie says.</p><p>“How long have you been sitting on that picture from Fire Island?”</p><p><em> “I wasn’t sitting on it. Bev sent it to me like, last week, she got a new phone, she had to, like, migrate some stuff from her Cloud, or...whatever,” </em> Eddie says, dismissively. <em> “I don’t know why this stuff is so complicated. What is the Cloud, anyway, why is it called a Cloud—” </em></p><p>“You sound about eighty,” Richie says, faintly amused, even when Eddie flips him the bird half-heartedly. “I remember Fire Island,” he continues.</p><p>Eddie watches him. <em> “Yeah?” </em></p><p>“That AirBnB,” Richie says, contemplative. “Those little rooms. We shared a twin.”</p><p><em>“Don’t remind me,” </em> Eddie says, visibly pained. <em> “We didn’t share. Share implies some kind of fifty-fifty split. You took up eighty percent of it. I slept for like, three hours.”</em></p><p>“Sorry, Eds, some of us didn’t make the <em> economical </em> choice when we decided to grow,” Richie sighs, which earns him a whole-hearted bird. “That’s total BS, anyway. You slept for like, <em> six </em> hours. I know this, because <em> I </em> slept for three hours, and you were sleeping on top of me for the rest of the night.”</p><p>“That’s not true,” Eddie says defensively, in a way that means he knows it’s true. Richie grins. </p><p>“Do you remember waking up in the middle of the night?” he asks. </p><p>The irritation fades from Eddie’s face; he studies Richie, dark-eyed. The connection isn’t great—or the resolution, whatever it’s called, Eddie probably would know—but even if the picture isn’t perfect it works, somehow, for what they’re doing; on Richie’s screen, Eddie is a little smudged, a little dreamlike.  <em> “I do.” </em></p><p>It had been four AM, give or take, according to the faint glow from the ancient analog clock sat on the bedside table. Richie had been drifting in and out of consciousness; by 4am, finally, he’d woken up to Eddie a deadweight on top of him, nose shoved into Richie’s neck. He’d had to keep his mouth clamped shut for fear of getting a mouthful of Eddie’s hair, but as he was situated, he could smell the sea in it from swimming earlier that day, muting the familiar scent of Eddie’s fancy shampoo and conditioner. </p><p>The state of half-wakefulness that Richie had come to awareness in had been disorienting; Richie remembers it taking him ten seconds or so, after he’d woken up, to remember where he was, as soon as he could process what the distant hush-hush-hush of the lapping waves in the distance had been. The AirBnb had been sweltering—an old beach property, big enough to sleep eight, but not updated—no central air, just standing fans in each room, and Richie had turned theirs off early in the night when the noise made it hard for him to sleep. </p><p>The twin bed hadn’t helped. When he’d woken up at four, the two of them had been sticky with sweat, Eddie plastered to Richie’s front, the bared part of his waist from the bit of his sleep shirt that had ridden up hot against Richie’s skin like a brand. Richie’s learned that Eddie at night is a living, breathing furnace, prone to night sweats, too. </p><p><em> “I don’t sweat a lot,” </em>Eddie interjects, offended, although he’d been quiet as he’d listened to Richie talk, hanging on to every word, although this puts a pause on the low buzz of heat that’s been building its way up to a simmer since they started this.</p><p>“You sweat more than <em> I </em> do,” Richie points out. “When you’re sleeping, anyway. Maybe you’re dreaming about running.”</p><p><em> “That’s not how that works,” </em>Eddie mutters, drumming his fingers a little impatiently where they’ve come to rest at some point during Richie’s monologue, just barely brushing up against the waistband of his shorts. </p><p>“Well, whatever, I’m not, like, a dreamologist,” Richie says. “Dream scientist. I’m just setting the scene, okay?” Richie’s eyes settle on where Eddie’s fingers are lingering—and just for a moment, he has tunnel vision. He ought to draw this out, he tells himself, but: the will, the flesh, et cetera Richie’s eyes flick back up to Eddie’s face, and he makes a decision. “Take your shorts off. </p><p>Eddie’s surprised to hear that—that much is clear from his face. Surprise, though, settles into thoughtfulness, until he speaks again.<em> “Say please.” </em></p><p>“Please,” Richie says, without a thought. </p><p>It’s enough to satisfy Eddie, and—merciful, solely in this instance—he doesn’t tease Richie for how quickly he’d acquiesced, sliding back a little and drawing his knees up in order to remove his shorts as requested. He proceeds to neatly fold them, too, but Richie doesn’t give a damn about that; all of his focus is on the newly bared flesh on display—Eddie’s toned thighs, his narrow-boned ankles as he shifts in order to set the shorts aside with the rest of his clothes. He’s in boxer briefs; tight, close-fitting, expensive looking. </p><p><em> “So I was all gross and sweaty,” </em> Eddie says, scattering Richie’s thoughts, and he wrenches his gaze back up to his face, a little guilty, like he’d been caught looking at something he shouldn’t have been. </p><p>“Not gross,” Richie says. “Anyway.”</p><p>Richie hadn’t woken up because he’d been hot, although that had kept him up on and off throughout the rest of the night. He’d woken up because Eddie was moving on top of him—slowly, rhythmically, the top of his head bumping softly at the bottom of Richie’s chin as he did it. </p><p>Disoriented as he’d been, it had taken Richie a few seconds to put two and two together; that Eddie was straddling one of his thighs, that Eddie was <em> hard</em>, that Eddie was humping</p><p><em>“Don’t say humping,” </em> Eddie groans, but he’s pink, flushed, even as he protests. <em> “Please, that’s like, the unsexiest word in the universe—”</em></p><p>That Eddie was grinding up against Richie’s thigh—not deliberately, because as Richie had craned his neck to the side, he could see that Eddie’s eyes had still been shut; that he was still fast asleep. And Richie had peered up at the ceiling, paralyzed, uncertain, trying to decide whether or not he ought to feel guilty about what he’d wanted to do, in that moment. They’d never discussed something like this. He didn’t think that Eddie would mind, were he to reciprocate, but he didn’t know for certain. </p><p><em> What</em>, Eddie had mumbled blearily at the time, halfway to wakefulness, a little sharply, like Richie had been the offending party there. His wits had returned to him quick enough, though—but in that instance, not <em> enough </em> of his wits so that he’d been self-conscious to realize what he’d been doing. As it turned out, it had been just enough of his wits to know what he’d wanted. <em> Hey, </em> Eddie had said, somewhere between sleepy and accusatory, more intent, then, on drawing Richie’s focus. </p><p>And he’d kissed Richie, clumsily, slowly, panting against his mouth as he worked his hips. </p><p><em> “This is kind of embarrassing, you know,” </em> Eddie says, pained, but as Richie watches him—palms flat on the desk in front of him, doing exactly as he’s told, even if he himself is already stiffening up just from telling this. <em> “I don’t remember half of this shit.” </em></p><p>“What, you think I’m bullshitting you? You freaked out the next morning because you realized you forgot to shower after I—”</p><p><em> “Okay!” </em> Eddie interjects hastily. <em> “Okay. Yes. I’m just saying.”  </em></p><p>And even if it’s embarrassing—Eddie’s in his underwear, and it’s hard to miss that there are the stirrings of interest there, whether Eddie doesn’t remember this, like he’s saying he doesn’t, or whether he does. </p><p>Richie’s head swims a little. </p><p>“Can I unzip my jeans?” he asks, haltingly.  “They’re not, really, uh, boner friendly—”</p><p><em> “From the sound of your own voice?” </em> Eddie asks; there’s a confusing expression on his face, a mixture of skepticism and curiosity. </p><p>“From the way you look,” Richie says. “From remembering what it’s like.”</p><p>Eddie evaluates that answer, studying Richie for a long few seconds before he speaks again. “Okay,” he says. “You can.”</p><p>And Richie had kissed him back. He’d angled his thigh up a little bit, one hand coming up to slide around to the small of Eddie’s back underneath his t-shirt, splaying his fingers there where he’s damp with sweat. He’d arched up against Eddie as Eddie ground down against him. </p><p>Their AirBnB had been built for those sorts of hot summers, and those hot summers only—the walls hadn’t been insulated, not really built to last, midcentury, cheap. From their bedroom, the long way down the hall, someone could’ve sniffled in the kitchen and they’d have been able to hear it clear as a bell. </p><p>The point being—in a house full of eight sleeping people, packed together like sardines—it had been very important to keep very, very quiet. </p><p>When Richie had spoken up that night, his voice raw and rough from sleep, it had been in half of a whisper, if that. </p><p><em> Do you wanna</em>, Richie had said, and <em> okay, </em> Eddie had said back, and <em> where’s the</em>, Richie had murmured, and <em> bedside table</em>, Eddie murmured back. </p><p>Richie had twisted over Eddie in the bed, bracing him with the hand plastered to the small of his back to keep him from tumbling out of it entirely as he’d rummaged around blind in the bedside table for the lube, knocking his glasses from the table entirely in his haste, where they’d fallen to the floor with a clatter.  </p><p>They’d both gone still, and listened. </p><p>The waves in the distance; the tak-tak-tak of the old clock in the kitchen. The low groan of the house as it leaned, nonchalantly, in the summer wind; it had been on stilts, like the rest of the houses close to the sea. In the next room over—Bill and Mike’s—someone had rolled over, or something, because they’d heard the creak of the bed, but that had been all. </p><p>Twenty seconds of caution, though, had been all of the patience that the two of them could muster up, on that particular instance, and as Richie moved to pop the cap off of the lube, Eddie had batted his hand away sleepily, wresting it from his grip so that he could get his own fingers slick instead, grinding down against Richie’s thigh with a renewed determination. </p><p>Eddie had proceeded to make a quick job of prepping himself—brisk and efficient. Richie hadn’t been able to really see, from how Eddie was sprawled on top of him, but it had been easy to get the sense that his hand was working. He’d felt Eddie’s breath come in pants against his neck, out of rhythm as he’d concentrated, until he was more or less satisfied. </p><p>Richie had pulled him into another kiss, then, cupping his jaw between his hands, dragging the pads of his thumbs against his cheekbones. </p><p><em> How should we</em>, Richie had whispered, and <em> Let’s</em>, Eddie had managed, and in a clumsy sort of tangle of limbs they’d rearranged themselves on the bed, as gingerly as they could, until Richie had been snug against Eddie’s back. </p><p>Richie had slotted a hand between them to push down his sweatpants hastily, just as Eddie fumbled to pull his shorts down, managing to get them down to his knees until they got half tangled in the sheets. </p><p><em>Can I just, </em> he’d asked helplessly, in a hushed whisper, giving a hopeful thrust between Eddie’s thighs, and <em> Fucking do it, </em> Eddie had groaned—and he’d barely gotten that out before Richie had adjusted his angle so that he could push into him properly.</p><p>Richie can remember that it had been a little bit of a mess. The two of them, half asleep; Eddie hobbled by his shorts; the sticky heat of that night. The twin bed, especially. Richie had barely had the room to move, and even if he could have, he wouldn’t have dared—thrusting made the bed creak, Richie had been quick to discover. </p><p>So he’d been forced to slow it down—rocking into Eddie, in, out, to the muted protest of the bed underneath them and the rustle of the sheets, and then one gasp from Eddie at a particular thrust, and then no more, as Eddie reached up hastily to cup his hand over his mouth. </p><p><em> Eddie</em>, Richie had mouthed against the back of his neck—not saying it, just playing like he was, before’d he kissed him, right where his soft dark hair tapered off into bare skin, because Eddie had felt so good, easy like that, in the early hours of the morning. Even with Eddie’s hand pressed to his mouth he could hear his breath coming in quiet whiffs. </p><p>And Richie had ducked his head to bite at the curve of Eddie’s shoulder gently, and he could still taste the salt from the sea on him on his tongue. </p><p><em>“I thought I was going to die,” </em> Eddie interrupts, dragging a lazy hand down to palm the swell of his cock through his underwear; his voice is a little raw as he continues on. <em> “You were, like, barely moving. I couldn’t move. My fucking shorts.”</em></p><p>It takes a second for Richie to formulate his thoughts; he’s staring. Hard enough so that it hurts  a little, now. It takes every bit of control over himself that he possesses to keep himself from reaching down and touching himself; from mimicking what Eddie is doing, that slow slide of his hand, so that if he closed his eyes, he could pretend that Eddie was doing it to him instead. “If I’d woken anyone up I think you would have cut my dick off,” he says, finally, rubbing at a scratch in the table with his thumb.</p><p>Eddie tips his head back a little to rest against the headboard of the bed. <em> “I wouldn’t have. It’s useful, sometimes,” </em> he says, casually, and he lets his legs fall apart a little, and <em> god</em>, he knows what he’s doing. Richie’s eyes are locked on Eddie’s hand. <em> “I’d probably go for your arm.” </em></p><p>“Let me see you,” Richie says, for the second time. </p><p><em> “You’re seeing me now,” </em> Eddie says again serenely, smugly, the cat who’s got the cream. Richie squeezes his eyes shut, and counts to five. </p><p>“Please, Eddie,” Richie says finally, blinking his eyes open again. </p><p>Eddie doesn’t answer. Instead, he reaches to push down his boxers so that he take his cock in hand and give it an experimental stroke; it’s easy with the precome that’s pearling up at the head. He looks like he gives a little shaky huff of breath as he does it, but the laptop’s mic doesn’t pick it up. </p><p>Richie folds one hand over the other, rock hard, drinking in the sight of Eddie in front of him. This—he supposes, hazily—is torture. It has to be. Eddie tips his head back to rest against the headboard; his eyes flutter shut as he works himself with his hand, deep concentration writ across his face. There’s no way to know for certain, but Richie’s pretty sure that this is how he looks when he does it in private.</p><p>Eddie cracks an eye open. <em> “Keep talking,” </em>he says, pointedly, and Richie realizes belatedly he’d said it for a second time. </p><p>“I…” Richie swallows. “Okay. Yes. Right.”</p><p>The thing is, Richie’s pretty sure there isn’t much more to tell. It’s hard to remember, now especially, in the state that he’s in, but also in general, because in that little twin bed at the beach house—four am, ish, before the world had woken up, it had felt something like a trance. Richie had pushed into Eddie, and then out again, rhythmically, working his way in just a fraction of a little bit deeper each time; he remembers that the slick sound of it had been particularly obscene in the still silence of their little room. </p><p>He hadn’t been able to see Eddie’s face, plastered behind him like he was, he could remember. He’d been able to make out  the pink tips of his ears, the suggestion that his eyes were closed in the amount of profile that he could catch a glimpse of, but that had been it, mostly. </p><p>Eddie had nearly bloodied Richie’s nose when he’d snaked an arm around his waist to take his cock in his hand, although that hadn’t been on purpose—Eddie hadn’t been expecting it, clearly, and he’d jerked his head back reflexively like he’d been startled awake, although Richie had managed to narrowly duck it by coincidence, as he’d bitten down on his shoulder in order to muffle his own groan as he tensed up around Richie’s cock. </p><p>Eddie had glanced back at him—probably looking to make sure he <em> hadn’t </em> given Richie a nosebleed—and when he’d been satisfied that he hadn’t caused Richie any undue harm, he’d kissed him over his shoulder once Richie had let up on it, long, slow, and languid, even with the awkward angle, even when surely his neck would have started to ache. </p><p>He’d still tasted like his toothpaste, Richie remembers thinking, stupidly, and something about that realization—something in its implied and familiar domesticity—had been enough for him to thrust up into Eddie roughly, reflexively, as deep into him as he could get, and then come like that, with a muffled groan into Eddie’s mouth as he did it. </p><p>And he’d gotten selfish as he’d worked himself through the aftershocks with two or three shallow thrusts, momentarily losing the coordination required in order to jerk Eddie off acceptably. His hand had gone slack, something that had earned him a frustrated hum and a pointed grind backwards from Eddie. </p><p>Startled and guilty, Richie had resumed his efforts hastily, and really, it hadn’t taken much. Eddie had been slick with precome, probably from whatever the fuck he’d been dreaming about. Richie’s hand had gone easy on his cock, and—not to brag, but Richie could write the book on making Eddie come. Richie could write a five page essay on making Eddie come, with citations, and everything. </p><p><em> “What the fuck would you be citing,” </em> Eddie, on the screen, groans, voice catching on his hand’s next pass as he strokes his cock, his free hand fisted in the sheets at his side. </p><p>“Studies,” Richie croaks, eyes locked on to Eddie’s hand, how one of his bent knees is angled off to the side. “Statistics.” He wants to touch himself. He <em> has </em> to touch himself, or he’ll die, probably, and—it’s <em> automatic</em>, how he arches to grind up against the unforgiving hard underside of the desk table. It doesn’t even feel good, particularly, but it’s something, and he draws in a breath sharply.</p><p><em> “No cheating, Richie,” </em> Eddie says sternly, scattering his thoughts, and Richie freezes, guilty. </p><p>“I wasn’t, uh,” Richie protests helplessly, sinking back into his chair properly. “I didn’t. Not on <em> purpose</em>, anyway—”</p><p>“Shut up,” Eddie manages, and Richie shuts up. Eddie’s squeezed his eyes shut, and Richie can hear him breathing through his laptop speakers, see his chest rise and fall, one ragged breath after another. He can <em> hear </em> Eddie work his cock, too. Richie’s mouth waters. He wishes he was there; he wants to taste— </p><p><em> “Keep talking,” </em> Eddie continues on. <em> “You came. And then what.” </em></p><p>And then what. Richie swallows. </p><p>The buildup to it had been easy to recognize, even half-asleep; Eddie had tensed, like he usually did, his heel slipping up in the mattress a little bit as he ground it into it, before coming like that, leaving Richie’s hand dripping. </p><p>They’d lain there for a minute, and then two, as a satisfied sort of exhaustion had settled down over them, Richie listening absently to the sound of the sea in the distance; the waves that rushed in to the shore, the waves that receded. By the third minute, Eddie—overstimulated—had had enough of this, and he’d elbowed him gently in the abdomen. </p><p>And then, in what felt like a sliver of an instant, exhaustion had hit the both of them like a two-by-four. Richie had already been swallowing a yawn when he’d pulled out with a grimace—Eddie, with something of an uncomfortable wriggle. Richie had kissed him behind the shell of his ear and promptly wiped his hand clean from come on Eddie’s stomach, just to be annoying and to earn himself another elbow to the abdomen, this time not so gentle, although Eddie had still been uncoordinated from sleep, doubly so in the post-orgasm haze.</p><p>But that had been all the energy that had been alotted to them in the early hours of that morning. Richie had stifled a yawn and pulled up his sweatpants; even Eddie had been too sleepy to think about cleanup, and he’d fumbled to tug his shorts back up around his hips before flopping down against Richie’s side. Richie is pretty sure he’d fallen asleep within <em> seconds </em>; the next thing he’d been aware of, the sun had been streaming in through the windows and Eddie had been hissing about needing to shower—</p><p>“<em>Richie</em>,” Eddie pants, a vision, and Richie promptly forgets about Fire Island entirely. His hair is mussed; he’s flushed down to his chest, and his cock is red and weeping precome as he jacks off. <em> “Rich, I’m gonna—I have to—” </em></p><p>“C’mon, baby,” Richie says hoarsely, and it’s all that Eddie needs to come—<em>quietly</em>, mostly, with one choked-off moan, and Richie leans in to the computer screen like he can chase it. He watches as Eddie falls apart, rapt with attention, hard and aching, desperately envious. Of Eddie getting to come, obviously, but just as much of Eddie being the one to make himself come. </p><p>Eddie gets some of it on his hand, and some of it pools on his abdomen, Richie can see, as Eddie collapses back against the pillows behind him. He wants to lick it up, he thinks, in agony, as he watches Eddie catch his breath, his chest rising and falling visibly with the effort of it. </p><p>Eddie, presumably unaware of any sort of internal struggle that Richie might be having, gives himself a few seconds to recover before he stretches to grab the box of tissues by the bedside table sluggishly. As he cleans himself up and puts himself back into order, Richie is envious of his <em> posture</em>, even; he’s loose-limbed with satisfaction, sated in a way that Richie hasn’t been—and won’t be—for weeks. </p><p>
  <em>“You good?”</em>
</p><p>Eddie’s voice tears him from the distraction of the sight in front of him. He’s not quite fully recovered yet—he’s left the tissues in crumples on his chest, something he’d be fussy about if he hadn’t just come, but he’s finished for the evening, clearly. He looks tired more than anything.</p><p>“I feel like my dick’s going to explode,” Richie mutters.</p><p>
  <em>“I really don’t think that’s how it works.”</em>
</p><p>Richie’s hands stay where they are; folded on top of each other, little white crescent moons from where he’d dug his nails into his skin bracketed on the skin there. Richie can’t even remember doing it. “Easy for you to say.”</p><p>But the longer they talk—the further out they get—the easier it gets, bit by bit. The cold shower after this, Richie is fairly certain, will be a necessity, rather than something just to try for the hell of it, but Richie’s okay. More or less. </p><p><em> “This sucks for me, too, you know,” </em> Eddie tells him, finally collecting his tissues diligently and this time stretching off camera entirely, where Richie knows the little waste bin is by the side of the bed. When he comes back into frame, he looks a little bit earnest. <em> “I want to see you come. You’re hot.” </em></p><p>“I think you just have a glasses fetish. Or, like. For guys who don’t know what a Roth IRA is.”</p><p>Eddie scowls, irritated by his dismissiveness.<em> “I mean it,” </em> he says, persistently. <em> “You are hot. Like, super hot. Hotter than, uh.” </em> Eddie squints, in deep concentration. <em> “Tom Cruise.” </em></p><p><em> “Tom Cruise?” </em> Richie stares. “That’s who you think is, like, the peak of Hollywood hotness right now? He stopped being hot, like, a whole <em> religion </em> ago. <em> Several </em> jumps on Oprah’s couch ago.”</p><p>Eddie goes quiet; Richie can hear him thinking, practically, until he finally speaks up again. “Taylor Lautner?” Eddie ventures gingerly, and he’s right to be hesitant about it, because Richie’s chasing <em> that </em> particular admission as soon as Eddie’s gotten it out—because Richie’s never heard anything so funny in his entire life.</p><p>“Taylor <em> Lautner </em> ?” Richie crows, delighted, and Eddie flushes pink. “How the fuck do you know who <em> Taylor Lautner </em> is? Eddie—have you seen Twilight?</p><p><em> “Everyone’s seen that,” </em> Eddie says evasively, after too long of a pause, which is as much an answer to his question as it isn’t one. </p><p>“Everyone who was <em> fourteen </em> in <em> 2006 </em> has seen that—”</p><p>
  <em>“Okay! Whatever! I mean it. I recognize that you, uh—have the raw end of the deal, here, so to speak—”</em>
</p><p>Richie leers. “I <em> better </em> be getting the raw end of the deal after the end of all this—” Before he’s even finished, Eddie has his face screwed up in exasperation. </p><p><em>“No!” </em> Eddie groans. <em> “What’s—I don’t even know what that means. What I’m trying to say is that I’m looking forward to the end of all this as much as you are.”</em></p><p>Richie eyes him, skeptical.</p><p><em>"Okay</em>,” Eddie amends, hands up to pacify him. <em> “Okay. Almost as much as you are.” </em></p><p>“Thank you,” Richie says magnanimously. “Anyway. You better go to sleep. You look tired.”</p><p><em> “I am tired. And I miss you,” </em> Eddie says, stifling a yawn. He’s cute, Richie thinks, although as soon as he’s finished yawning, Eddie pauses, eyeing him with suspicion.</p><p>“You’re not just waiting for me to hang off so that you can jack off, right?”</p><p>“No! No. I will not be jacking off. I will be taking a cold shower, and thinking about…” Richie gestures vaguely. “Not your mom. Mr. Keene naked. Whatever.”</p><p><em> “Fuck you,” </em> Eddie says, automatically, but he’s already focused on transferring the folded sweaters to the laundry bin somewhere off camera. <em> “Okay. Good. You can do it, Rich, I really think—this’ll be good! It’ll make the payoff even better. All this waiting.” </em> His voice dips in and out as he moves around the room until finally he collapses on the bed again; this time close to the camera, leaning on his elbows. </p><p>“So you say,” Richie grumbles. It’s tapered off now, a little bit, that desire, at least. “I’ve gotta sleep too, anyway.”</p><p><em> “Alright. I love you. I miss you,” </em> Eddie says, pausing. <em> “I’ll see you soon.” </em></p><p>Richie gives himself a second to take in the sight of Eddie close like this; his dark eyes, the faint pinkness the lingers in his face from coming. His dimples. If Richie were here, he’d kiss them, one after the other, and Eddie would probably squawk and try to pull away.</p><p>Richie swallows. “Miss you too, dude,” he says hastily, with forced nonchalance, because if he lingers on the call too much, he’s worried that he’ll cry, and that’s embarrassing. He gives Eddie a little bit of a wobbly smile. “Love you. Seeya.”</p><p>Eddie waves and reaches out to end the call. When Richie shuts the laptop, he sees his reflection in the mirror in front of him, for the first time; he looks tired, disheveled, and...unsatisfied. At this point, he’s pretty sure if he even <em> thinks </em> about the words ‘fire’ and ‘island’ for longer than five seconds he’ll have to ice down his crotch. </p><p>“What the fuck are you looking at,” Richie mutters at his reflection, and gets up. Cold shower it is, then. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Eddie had said <em> see you soon</em>, and he’s half right. It’s not <em> soon </em> soon, since it’s two weeks, a figure that Richie, frankly, boggles at, but his days are so packed with stuff that they pass quick. Eddie, too, is busy with work—as he explains to Richie in one expletive-ridden call, he’s had to take over a project from a colleague who’s bungled it so thoroughly he’ll have to start completely from scratched—so his calls with him are fleeting and far between, which, in some ways, helps keep him from distraction.  </p><p>And it <em> is </em> a distraction. The wanting isn’t prolonged, but as the days pass, with an increasing frequency, it comes in flashes; in Cincinnati, he’ll be looking for an Uber and he’ll think, suddenly, of Eddie fresh from his shower, his hair soft, before he’s put product in it. In Milwaukee, he’ll be signing glossy photos of himself for the sparse handful of ebullient fans huddled outside the stage door, and he’ll think of Eddie intently chopping carrots for dinner at night, his quick little hands, how nimbly he works. And in Kansas City—most alarmingly—he’d been crossing the wings to head onstage and had to promptly about-face when unbidden, a memory of the first time he’d blown Eddie had popped into Richie’s head; that seedly little motel on the way back from Derry, after Eddie had—with great determination—flung his wedding ring out into the patchy woods behind the motel. </p><p>And Richie goes to work. Goodnight, Dallas; goodnight, Colorado Springs. Eventually, he learns to think about it when it comes to him in flashes, and let it go when it goes. He has moments of weakness—like when Bill uploads to Instagram a shot of Eddie, beaming, next to the El Camino he’s been tooling around with in their garage. There’s something about Eddie (usually so fastidious) in an old t-shirt and jeans and a smudge of dark oil on his cheek that makes him jerk off in his hotel room <em> just </em> until he fears that he’ll come. </p><p>Stopping then had been an agony, genuinely. His eyes had watered, a little bit. This is a different thing from crying. He’d deleted the Instagram app from his phone entirely after that. </p><p>And the days kept passing. Seven, which was a week, and then another day, and another, and then Richie found himself on a plane back to LA, and that had been that. </p><p>But even if it had receded to the back of his mind during the tail end of his trip, Richie arousal returns to him, viciously, on the way back home. The flight is a long erotic nightmare. Richie doesn’t sleep a wink; he thinks about Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, and also the fact that he hasn’t come for a month, and also the fact that he <em> cannot </em> get a boner sitting here in first class while he waits for the flight attendant to finish pouring him a coke, lest he wind up in TMZ for being some kind of weird airplane soda pervert. </p><p>But the flight’s over, eventually. Richie lands at three am, and he takes an Uber back to their place, because—although Eddie had begged him to let him come and pick him up—Richie had begged him not to, because he’d rather not drive with Eddie on no sleep, as he’d prefer to have sex again at least one more time before he died. </p><p>But when he’s finally—<em> finally </em>—there in front of their place, sex is actually the last thing on his mind. He’s never been so tired in his life; he feels like he hasn’t slept in months, and it takes him three tries, squinting blearily at his key ring, to get the right key to unlock the door.</p><p>He shuts it behind him quietly when he gets in. The house is dark and still; distantly, Richie can hear the Uber driving off. He sets down his luggage and surveys the living room, a little neater than he’d left it, probably because it’s had a month’s vacation from Richie’s general mess.</p><p>It’s good to be back. Good to be home, good to be done with hotel rooms and time differences and being away from Eddie, who he knows is sound asleep up there in the bedroom; he just has to mount the stairs and take the third door on the left down the hallway, and there Richie will find him. It’s a feeling—a knowledge—that’s reassuring enough so that Richie pauses to soak in there on the threshold, clutching his roller suitcase, even worn-out from lack of sleep like he is. </p><p>Delayed gratification, he thinks, which is a little bit funny. </p><p>Richie abandons his roller at the door and heads upstairs, as quietly as he can; it’s an old house, and everything creaks, but Eddie sleeps like the dead, so he doesn’t really have to go out of his way to bother, although he does out of courtesy. When he gets to the bedroom, as his eyes adjust to the dark in there—the curtains are drawn—he toes off his shoes.</p><p>As his eyes adjust, as expected, there’s Eddie fast asleep in the bed, in the flesh for the first time in a month. He’s sprawled, tangled up in the sheets, threaded around him in bunches, like he’d passed out wrestling a serpent made from Egyptian cotton. Richie’s so soaked through with exhaustion that he almost doesn’t remember to strip down first, until he blearily comes to the realization that Eddie will probably defenestrate him in the morning if he sullies the bed with Airplane Clothes—and so he does, a little clumsily, although he leaves them in the pools that they fall in as he sheds them, stumbling forward to the bed. </p><p>Eddie—for someone who’s only 5’9”, or so he maintains—usually ends up taking up about eighty percent of the bed, unfurling gradually as he sleeps, and tonight he’s no different. Richie has to fit himself into bed carefully, tucking himself under one of Eddie’s arms, flung out into space off the side of the bed, but he manages it neatly, without disturbing him too much. Eddie is still deep within the throes of REM sleep, limp, limbs heavy like stones. </p><p>Emboldened, Richie draws him into his arms, tucking his nose into the curve of Eddie’s neck, and inhales. If he could bottle this, if he could do it like a line of coke, he would, he thinks sleepily—Eddie would call him disgusting for saying it, but it’s true. Eddie smells clean; like laundry detergent, like shampoo, like skin. A little bit like sweat. </p><p>Richie’s missed him. </p><p>I love you, he thinks. I love you. I do. It’s the last thing, and then he sleeps. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Richie wakes to the sun splashing across his face and an empty bed. </p><p>A sleep hangover, too; his body clock—he thinks blearily, fumbling for his phone—is all fucked up. His phone is dead, because he’s an idiot, and he forgot to plug it in before he’d fallen asleep, but as he squints at the window, he figures it’s morning. Late morning. The sun is high in the sky. Eddie had pulled the curtains wide, probably a little bit passive aggressively. </p><p>Richie stifles a yawn and gets up with a grimace; the arch of his right foot always aches in the morning, something he ought to ask Dr. K about, if he wants a professional diagnosis, although he would guess that it would just be <em> you’re getting old</em>, <em> Tozier</em>. </p><p>When he goes to brush his teeth, he can see that Eddie <em> really </em> let him sleep in—it’s twelve-thirty. He can hear clattering downstairs; a muffled swear. Eddie’s probably back from his run, which means…</p><p>...which doesn’t mean anything, necessarily, he imparts sternly to Richie-in-the-mirror, who looks suddenly, achingly hopeful. Emphasis on the ache. The clattering means that Eddie’s probably at war with the celery juicer downstairs; it doesn’t mean, necessarily, that he’s in the mood. </p><p>But he’s been wrong before. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It becomes quite obvious—as soon as Richie comes into the kitchen—that he’s probably not wrong on this occasion. </p><p>Eddie’s fresh from the shower, and dressed for the spring heat. He’d probably already been for his run—he’s in his weekend shorts, which means that he probably doesn’t plan on going out much during the day, and one t-shirt or another—he’s turned around, facing the celery juicer, jamming a stalk into its...celery hole? Richie stares. </p><p>It’s deja vu, a little bit, or like the whole last month had been one long, frustrating dream. Richie leans against the counter a little bit uncomfortably as he studies him, eyes lingering on the swell of his bicep as he stuffs the celery into the juicer. It shouldn’t be sexy. It <em> isn’t </em> sexy, and—</p><p>—Eddie glances back. “Oh.” He lights up, fist full of mangled celery. “You’re up!” </p><p>“I’m up,” Richie echoes, faintly. </p><p>“Here. You should—this is for you.” Eddie turns back to the juicer for a second and comes up with a glass full of the stuff, murky, green, and repulsive looking. He sets it on the island between them, sliding it over to Richie. “Drink,” he instructs. </p><p>“What, no kiss hello?” Richie says idly, </p><p>“I gave you a kiss hello. You were asleep. It was like, <em> eleven</em>,” Eddie says impatiently, before he starts to wheedle. “C’mon, Rich, it’s really good for you, you were just traveling, your <em> immune </em> system—”</p><p>“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Richie says, and the way that Eddie scrunches up his face in irritation at that makes him even cuter, although he decides to keep that particular fact to himself. Instead, he lifts the glass in a grim, cheerless cheers, and downs it all in one go like it’s poison. </p><p>Or most of it, anyway. Half of it. Richie nearly gags, putting the glass down against hastily. </p><p>“Jesus Christ. You drink this stuff on <em> purpose </em> ? Why don’t you just <em> eat </em> the celery?”</p><p>“You don’t get all the nutrients that way,” Eddie says vaguely, retrieving Richie’s half-full glass and finishing the rest of it himself, without gagging, because he’s a show-off.</p><p>“This is just going to be like when you only ate raw food for two days,” Richie informs him as Eddie goes to put the glass in the dishwasher. “Remember? You bought that overpriced fruit dehydrator—”</p><p>“That was different,” Eddie says primly. “And you know it was different.”</p><p>“I <em> don’t </em> know it’s different, is the thing!” Richie rushes in to say, because god, he’d missed arguing about stupid shit with Eddie nearly as much as he’d missed Eddie. “I have no idea! You just read it in, some tabloid shit, somewhere—where’d you read it?”</p><p>Eddie stares at him, before the truth is wrenched out of him. “Prevention Magazine,” he mutters, and—</p><p>“Prevention <em> Magazine!” </em> Richie echoes, theatrically aghast. “You and the old ladies with thirty items in their carts in the express line, <em> your </em> dollars and your dollars alone are keeping that publication afloat. I mean, it’s probably just you. They don’t even buy it, they just look at you—”</p><p>“Hey,” Eddie hisses. “<em>Fuck </em> you. I have all this celery, right here, and I can throw it at you. Right now—”</p><p>“<em>Prevention </em> Magazine, what precisely are you trying to prevent, Eddie—”</p><p>“You’re so annoying,” Eddie groans, and—finally—comes around the kitchen island to dole out to Richie the attention that he’s after, wrapping an arm loosely around his waist. “I missed you,” he says, and kisses him, quick and fond. </p><p>“<em>E</em><em>ddie</em>,” Richie breathes, zero to one hundred just from that—and that’s not <em> his </em> fault, is it? It’s the natural consequence of what Eddie’s asked of him. He chases him as he pulls back and kisses him again—something that Eddie permits, even when it goes slow. </p><p>Not quite slow enough, though. It’s seconds before Eddie wriggles out of his embrace to return to his celery, of which there is an abundance. Richie knows, from experience, that it takes about four point two billion stalks of celery to produce one teaspoonful of celery juice.</p><p>“We’ve got Stan’s thing tonight,” Eddie says, with a glance back at Richie like he’d been entirely unaffected—and so Richie fucks off from the kitchen island, formally, now that it’s apparent that he’s probably not going to get any more kisses. </p><p>“Stan’s thing,” he echoes vaguely, collapsing in the comfier chair in the living room, the one closest to what’s technically the kitchen, although it’s an open concept type of thing, so not too far. “Right.”</p><p>“Stan’s in town through the weekend,” Eddie says impatiently, sorting out the celery into bins, so apparently—actually—he’s through with juicing. “I told you, like, three thousand times, Richie. We’re doing drinks tonight. With everyone.”</p><p>“Oh! Good,” Richie says, genuinely pleased to remember it, now, that Eddie mentions this. It’s been ages since they’ve all been in the same room together—the natural result of only approximately 28% of the Losers’ clubs having what might approach a traditional nine to five, sans travel—and it’ll be good to see them again. The only thing, probably, that’s capable of motivating Richie to go out the day after a redeye. “I mean, right. I remember now.”</p><p>Eddie doesn’t look like he believes him, but he has other things to focus on: namely, figuring out how to cram three bins’ worth of celery into their fridge. It’s hard work, and Richie watches him as he grapples with it. </p><p>Gradually, it sends him into distress. “Why the fuck do you have so many sauces,” Eddie demands, breathless and outraged. </p><p>“I need them all.”</p><p>“You <em> don’t </em> need them all,” Eddie protests, gingerly holding up an ancient bottle of barbeque sauce between thumb and finger like it’s a dead rat. “They’re all, like, three years old. They’re probably moldy.”</p><p>Richie grins. “That adds to the flavor. It’s like blue cheese—”</p><p>“Oh, gross. Disgusting,” Eddie says, screwing up his face, but he returns the ancient barbeque sauce to its spot on the sauce shelf. And eventually, Eddie gives up on accomplishing the task neatly in favor of it accomplishing it at all, shoving everything in there with a rattle and shutting the door hastily, like he’s frightened that it’ll spring back out in an instant; he’s stock-still as he holds it in place, cartoonishly frozen, until gingerly, he removes his hands. </p><p>And all is well. Eddie sighs with relief. “I should’ve taken a video of that for your Instagram,” Richie says, redirecting his attention. “<em>Local Man Goes To War With Celery</em>.”</p><p>Eddie laughs at that, and abandons the fridge full of celery in order to come around to where Richie is seated, finally giving Richie his full attention. The shower-damp has given way to a little bit of sweat-damp, from the celery wars. </p><p>“You’re a big fan of my Instagram, huh,” Eddie says, crossing his arms as he stands in front of him, and there’s something in the way he says it that makes Richie snap to attention.</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” Richie says, his mouth dry. He swallows. “Huge fan. Really...big.”</p><p>“Uh huh.” Eddie doesn’t even address the dick joke—instead he cocks his head and studies Richie, going quiet and thoughtful. And Richie thinks—looking up at him like this, in his threadbare t-shirt in shorts, splashed by the afternoon sun pooling in through the windows—he’s just about the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. </p><p>Richie blinks, snapping out of it. Eddie’s just said something. “What’d you say?” he asks.</p><p>“I <em> said</em>, so I’m getting the sense that you’ve been pretty patient,” Eddie says, leaning in a little—just barely enough so that his bare knee nudges between Richie’s. Richie lets him push them apart a little obligingly. </p><p>He’s not aiming to be hopeful, here. It’s hard to stave it off, though.</p><p>“I’ve been patient,” Richie echoes—and he’d have said just about <em> anything </em> now, honestly, he’d have lied if he <em> hadn’t </em> been patient, but he wouldn’t have done a very good job of it. “So patient, dude. Like, the <em> most </em> patient. I haven’t even—”</p><p>“Did you touch yourself?” Eddie interrupts to ask, casually, in the same way that he might ask Richie to pass the salt. </p><p>Richie’s hands flex, and still; his eyes dart down to Eddie’s bare legs. He wouldn’t even have to move his arm to touch them, really. It takes every effort to tear his eyes away. </p><p>“Not really. I mean, uh. Twice, maybe, but I knew I had to stop, and it was just—I wasn’t sure if…”</p><p>Richie trails off as Eddie climbs into his lap, straddling his thighs. Richie’s hands fly up, hovering around his hips. Is he <em> allowed </em> to touch him? He wants to touch him. </p><p>“If, uh, I. If.”</p><p><em> “If?” </em> Eddie urges. </p><p>“If I could?” Richie manages, like it’s a question.</p><p>“How hard can it be to not come?” Eddie asks, like he’s irritated, and that tone shouldn’t have Richie at half mast, but—well. It’s been a long month. “You’re not an animal. You’re in control of your urges. It’s called self discipline.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Richie agrees, like he might agree to <em> let’s sell the house and live in the park for a year in a tent</em>, or <em> oh Richie, let’s go to the circus, I do love to see the clowns </em> right now. Like he’d agree to <em> let’s marathon all of Bill’s movies, there are eighteen of them, each of them are three hours, you do the math</em>. “You’re, uh. Super right, Eddie. Really. Can I touch y—<em>oh</em>.”</p><p>It’s not necessary to ask that question. The reason it’s not necessary is because Eddie is reaching down to tug down Richie’s sweatpants and underwear enough to get his cock out, which he gives a slow, easy stroke as it thickens in his hand. His eyes have dropped from Richie’s face as he does it; if Richie were in possession of more than three of his brain cells, presently, he might be asking him if he likes what he sees. </p><p>Either way, he figures that it’s as good of an answer as any to his question, and when he reaches to settle his hands on Eddie’s thighs, Eddie doesn’t swat them away, </p><p>This is it, he thinks, deliriously, nearly paralyzed with how <em> good </em> Eddie’s hand feels, how eagerly he arches up into his touch. What he’s been waiting a month for. Eddie leans in to kiss him, and he takes this time with it, languid and a little clumsy, their teeth clicking. He tastes like celery juice, and Richie knows that he won’t be able to look at a single stalk, from this point onwards, without popping a boner inappropriately. </p><p>Eddie ends the kiss in order to give his cock another teasing pull, and Richie exhales shakily, his hands skating up to skim past the hem of Eddie’s shorts, to the hot flesh underneath. </p><p>The shorts are a little too lengthy for him to get to where he wants, ideally—as he pushes his hands up, they bunch up, impeding his progress, but as he continues, slotting his hand underneath them, he realizes—suddenly—that he’s <em> continuing </em>to continue. </p><p>Richie squints.</p><p>“You’re not wearing underwear,” he observes, stupid and shocked, before Eddie kisses him again and grinds down against his bare cock; instinctively, Richie bucks his hips up, chasing that bit of physical contact, the head of his cock dragging up against the silky fabric bunched up by Eddie’s inner thighs. </p><p>Eddie’s hard. It’s been a long month for Richie, but he’s probably missed this, too—maybe not as much as Richie has, but enough for Eddie’s breath to catch as he rocks down against him again, head tipping back and his mouth falling open a little bit as he does it, like he’s actually riding him, even if this isn’t quite sex, yet.</p><p>The fabric of Eddie’s shorts are soft and warm. Richie’s hand slides up to the small of Eddie’s back to steady him as he rocks up against him, the head of Richie’s dick bumping up against the hem of his shorts, a little further back, grinding up into the curve of his ass like he could actually thrust up into him. </p><p>“You really wanna fuck me, huh? You’re making a mess,” Eddie breathes, half scolding, half heated, and Richie’s hand flexes helplessly where it rests on Eddie’s hip. Eddie’s right. He <em> is </em> making a mess—leaving Eddie’s thighs slick with precome, a damp patch in Eddie’s shorts where he nudges up against him. It’s one thing that’s changed over the course of the month; he gets wetter like this, in this way, like his dick’s trying to make up for what it isn’t allowed to do.</p><p>“Eddie,” Richie croaks, because of course he wants to fuck him. Of course he does. He’s never wanted anything more. He wants to so much that he can’t figure out how to say it. “Baby—”</p><p>“You remember what the deal was?” Eddie asks, nonchalant for someone who’s—by the way—pretty fucking hard himself, straining at his shorts. Richie slides a hand down to touch him, or at least attempt to, but Eddie catches his hand, keeping it splayed just above where he probably wants it, flat on his abdomen.</p><p>“Yes! Eddie, fuck, I didn’t—all month,” Richie says hastily. “I swear.”</p><p>“Today’s the thirtieth. You left on...the first?” Eddie says, inexplicably. “What time did we get to the airport, Richie?”</p><p>Richie blinks, confused. “What?</p><p>“I said. What time,” —and Eddie grinds down against his cock, slow and teasing, and Richie groans. “Did we get. To the airport.”</p><p>“<em>What </em>?” Richie repeats, a pant, nearly, this time. </p><p>“Eight pm,” Eddie informs him. “What time is it now?”</p><p>Eddie’s just asking him questions to torture him, Richie’s pretty sure. He’s a sadist. He ought to be jailed for this, he thinks hazily, out of his mind with lust. The only reason he’s able to come up with the <em> correct </em> answer is the fact that Eddie’s fitbit is three inches from his face. “Twelve forty-six?”</p><p>Eddie nods, a little smugly, and then doesn’t say anything, like there’s some sort of realization that Richie’s supposed to come to, like there’s anything that Richie can realize right now apart from how badly he wants to put his dick in him. When Richie continues to stare, Eddie sighs, exasperated. “So it hasn’t <em> really </em> been thirty full days, has it?”</p><p>Richie boggles up at him. <em> Oh</em>. He’s—what he means, it’s… “Eddie,” Richie whimpers, his voice catching as Eddie rocks back down against him again. “Christ. You...Eddie, please. Please, let me—you <em> have </em>to—”</p><p>“You know the rules,” Eddie says airily. “You’re gonna flake out <em> now </em>? It’s eight hours. You’re so close.”</p><p>Richie shuts his eyes. He retreats to his zen place; his soul leaves his body, he’s pretty sure. He astral projects. He looks down at himself, and Eddie straddling him, and comes to the realization that he <em> has </em> created a monster. </p><p>He opens his eyes again. </p><p>“Let me get you off, then,” he ventures. “Please.”</p><p>Eddie studies him and then releases Richie’s hand so that it can dip down, finally; one-handed, he fumbles in Eddie’s shorts to fish his cock out, ignoring the way that his own cock jumps as Eddie thrusts into his fist with a sharp inhale. </p><p>“You’re fucking evil, Kaspbrak,” Richie says breathlessly as he jacks Eddie off, watching Eddie’s hand bunch up his own shirt in a tight fist, his eyes squeezed shut. “I swear to Christ. Pennywise has <em> nothing—” </em></p><p><em> “</em>Do <em> not </em> fucking talk to me about Pennywise,” Eddie manages, through gritted teeth. “While you have your hand on my <em> dick— </em>”</p><p>Richie laughs, but lapses into silence afterwards, too absorbed in the task—quite literally—at hand, although as it turns out, it doesn’t take much work to get Eddie to come. Richie knows his body well, and it’s not like Eddie’s had much practice holding off, anyway. </p><p>Most of it gets on Richie’s hand; some on his shirt, a little bit on Richie’s chin. Richie realizes this when Eddie—watching him, hazy and half-lidded in the afterglow—reaches out to drag his thumb through it, scooping it up so that he can push it into Richie’s mouth. He obliges him, licking it clean.  </p><p>And Eddie leans in to kiss him, even, without bitching about the taste of his own come, something that he’s usually inexplicably squeamish about, which Richie decides to take as an apology for his wicked behavior, even if it probably isn’t one. It’s quick, though, and as he does it, Eddie reaches down to tug Richie’s sweatpants back up, like that settles that. </p><p>And then, after he’s put himself back together, too, Eddie dismounts, leaving Richie with a hand slick with come and in a significant amount of pain. </p><p>Richie’s gotten pretty good at this part, though. He peers up at the ceiling and does some math in his head. Eighteen times two is thirty-six. Thirty-six times two is seventy-two. “Why the <em> fuck </em> aren’t you wearing underwear,” he asks, with only a little bit of exasperation. Seventy-two times two is one hundred and forty-four.</p><p>“I dunno. I thought you’d think it was hot,” Eddie says, pausing in the kitchen to examine himself, already reaching for a paper towel. “<em>Ugh</em>. You really did make a mess. I have to take another shower.”</p><p>“Sucks to suck,” Richie says, entirely absent of empathy on that particular issue, particularly with the information that Eddie’d <em> planned </em> this, the little bastard. He flings an arm over his face. “What’s two hundred and eighty-eight times two?” he wonders aloud, to the crook of his elbow.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s a joy to see Stan again, nearly as much as it’s a joy to see everyone else, although he’s a rarer sight. Ben and Bev aren’t based in LA, but they’re there for work plenty enough; Mike and Bill live twenty minutes away by car, in good traffic. They haven’t all been together like this—all seven of them—since they’d gone up to Ben’s cabin in December, months ago. </p><p>The bar’s a dive. Richie loves; Eddie tolerates it. They’ve been there before, a few times—once with Bev, after which they’d staggered off drunk to karaoke and spent four hours sleeping curled up in Eddie’s Escalade after their designated driver (one E. Kaspbrak, a notorious lightweight) had decided to undesignate himself for the price of two shots. </p><p>Richie knew it first. He used to go here before all this, actually; he’d even brought a girl here once, just in an effort to prove to himself that he wanted to, as he attempted every few years. As he looks over to the bar, he can almost see himself there—five years ago, just skating up from rock bottom, finally, although he more or less wavers just above it until he gets his call from Mike.</p><p>He’s a different man tonight, but the bar looks the same. It’s crowded, hot from so many bodies in the room, not quite loud enough so that they have to shout, but not quiet enough so that they can speak normally. The floor—mysteriously—is sticky. They’re shoulder-to-shoulder, hunched over a little bar table, Richie crammed between Bill and Stan, which makes him feel a little bit like the BFG, as Stan recounts a dispute that he’d gotten into with a client two weeks ago.</p><p>“Essentially, he wanted me to help him commit tax fraud,” Stan says, placid, even-toned, three shots of whiskey in. “I explained to him that he’s not paying me enough to help him commit tax fraud. He says, well, what do you want. I say, well, what are you offering. He says, maybe I know a guy who could convince you. I asked him if that was like a <em> sex </em> thing, or a threat on my life, although before you answer that, I’m married, and my wife is a purple belt in karate, which dismisses both of those concerns. He says, alright, well, how can I convince you. What do you like. I tell him I’m a bird guy. A <em> bird </em> guy, he says. Isn’t there a Latin term? Not really, I say. We just call ourselves birders. And—”</p><p>“Is there going to be a punchline here? Every time I think you get close to one, you just keep going,” Richie says in a hushed tone, faintly impressed.</p><p>Ben’s brow furrows. “I thought we already got to the punch line,” he ventures. “Right?”</p><p>“Oh,” Eddie sighs, visibly relieved. “<em>Oh</em>. I was thinking—tax evasion, god, he’d go to jail. It’s a joke, then.”</p><p>Stanley pauses, and the six of them look at him askance, a little unsettled. “Could be,” he says with a shrug, which doesn’t do much to assuage any of their concerns. “Anyway. We figured it out. How’s the book coming?”</p><p>Mike beams. “I mean, it’s—we’re in the research part. But it’s coming along. I think we’re going to drive out to New Mexico to do some field research, it’s going to be really, uh. Illuminating!”</p><p>“Wow,” Ben says, setting down his vodka soda. “That’s what, six hours?”</p><p>“I dunno,” Mike says. “Ask the driver.”</p><p>“That’s me,” Bill says, loudly, leaning against Richie—ostensibly in a comradely sort of way, but Richie suspects that he’s also utilizing him as a steadying mechanism. “<em>I’m </em> the driver.”</p><p>“The <em> best </em> driver,” Mike says indulgently, giving Bill a friendly pat.</p><p>Bill is drunk, and visibly staggered by such a compliment. He claps a hand on Mike’s where it rests on his shoulder. For a second, he looks like he’s going to cry, until his attention wanders. “There’s going to be aliens in it,” he explains. “Not aliens you can see. They’re—they think that they’re angels. Spirits. But—they’re aliens. And Tammy Harisson—she’s a, uh, winsome widow, a mother of two, transfixed by this mysterious stranger, new in town—”</p><p>“We’re going to the Met gala this year!” Bev exclaims, and Bill’s attention wanders to that; he mouths <em> Met Gala</em>, visibly trying to remember what that is. “I <em> know</em>, I’m sort of dreading it. But you have to go once because then you’ll be able to talk about it incessantly for the rest of your life. It’s like going to Harvard, I think.”</p><p>“We’ve talked about just walking in and turning around and then walking right out,” Ben says with a half smile. “That would count as going. I think. Technically.”</p><p>“<em>I</em>think Ben should wear heels,” Bev says, bumping up against Ben amicably, and Ben blushes and laughs. </p><p>“I think Ben would fall over,” Ben explains, before Eddie asks them what the theme is, and Richie’s attention wanders, too. He glances back over to the bar again. The same rusted barstools—the same bartender who’d guided him out to the back to puke once, he’s pretty sure, although if he remembers, he doesn’t give Richie any sort of meaningful look that might imply it, which is gentlemanly. The old, broken clock still sits affixed to the smudged mirrors, too. </p><p>“God, I’m beat. I’m still on New York time, I think,” Richie says, interrupting Bill and Ben mid-conversation; they’re talking about pirates, which is either an indication of the Met Gala theme or a marked and abrupt shift in conversation. </p><p>“It takes three days for your body to fully recover from jetlag,” Eddie points out, glancing over to him. “I read that somewhere.”</p><p>“Thanks, Dr. K,” Richie says. “What time is it, anyway?”</p><p>“Eight oh...three?” Eddie answers distractedly, glancing at his fitbit. “Not that late. So—is there a specific <em> era </em> of pirates, like, could you do—online piracy?”</p><p>“Eight-oh-three, huh,” Richie echoes, a little loudly. All of them look back to him, puzzlement mirrored on all of their faces. “Three minutes past eight? You’re sure?”</p><p>The six of them continue to look at him, puzzled. Until it’s the five of them, because slowly—thankfully—realization begins to dawn on Eddie’s face. He opens his mouth, and then he shuts it, as he continues to stare. </p><p>“I’m gonna go splash some cold water on my face, I think,” Richie says, stifling a yawn mid-sentence, for theatrical effect. </p><p>“Wait!” Eddie says hastily, and Richie can see the cogs turning in his head, practically, before he ventures on haltingly. “Aren’t you...shouldn’t you...you don’t want, uh. To do that at home?”</p><p>It’s a strange question for the rest of the group, but that’s just because Richie’s the only one who’s interpreting it correctly. “What? You think it’s got, like, brain-eating amoebas in it?” he says, with some good, genuine skepticism. He’s an actor, technically. “I’ll survive. I mean—I’m <em> fine </em> with, uh. Doing it at home. If it comes down to it.” Alright—it’s been ages since he’s done any improv. He’s a little rusty, is all. Bill squints at him, bewildered. “I’ll just step out to the bathroom here,” he continues, backing away, hands up. “And see if it helps to give it a try now. Is all.”</p><p>“Uh. Okay!” Eddie—who is not an actor, and who does that sort of high-pitched voice when he’s lying in some way—says, earning him a suspicious look from Bev. Well, he’s done all he can do. If he’s lucky, they’ll think the two of them are drunk already.</p><p>“What the fuck,” Stan says, and it’s the last thing he hears before he disappears into the crowd. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“What the <em> fuck</em>,” Eddie says too, shutting the bathroom door behind him, and Richie—hovering at the mirror, awkwardly—breathes a sigh of relief. </p><p>“You took your sweet fucking time,” he says. “Like, two guys have been in here. They didn’t know <em> what </em> the fuck I was doing just standing here. They’re going to tell TMZ I was trying to look at their dicks.”</p><p>It’s a two stall bathroom but the bar’s a dive, and they barely have room to maneuver. As Eddie steps inside, he has to flatten himself up against the sink so that Richie can duck around him to flick the lock shut on the door. </p><p>The sink has seen better days; so has the mirror, smudged and mottled. The bathroom is clean, more or less, for a dive, but this isn’t Soho House. There’s numbers scribbled all over the walls; there’s an empty bottle of beer tucked up against the window. </p><p>“Did you <em> really </em> splash your face with water that came out of this thing?” Eddie says, with vocal disgust. “I’m not fucking kissing you if you did. I don’t want to, like, eat the amoeba water—”</p><p>Richie, having just locked the door, twists around with cartoonish abruptness, boggling at Eddie. “<em>What </em>?” he asks, horrified, until he sees Eddie’s mouth twitch with a smile in the mirror. </p><p>“Oh. <em> Oh</em>, fuck <em> you</em>, Eddie,” Richie crows, delighted, lurching forward to sling an arm around Eddie’s neck before he can duck away, bringing a hand up to rub his knuckles into his hair. “Eddie gets off a good one, <em> god </em>—”</p><p>“Hey—” Eddie hisses, thrashing in an attempt to wriggle his way to freedom. “<em>Asshole </em>—”</p><p>There’s a struggle until Richie releases him, finally. Eddie shoots him a glare and a halfhearted middle finger before turning around to smooth his hair in the mirror. </p><p>Richie watches him as he does it, the two of them catching their breath, as he leans back against the door. That glare, on its own, had been enough to stir his interest but Eddie’s flushed pink from the struggle, and besides that, he’s <em> here</em>. In the bathroom, having followed him like Richie had suggested that he do.  </p><p>“Hey, you,” Richie says, soft, just audible over the music that bleeds in through the door: <em> I Love Rock and Roll</em>, as painful of a cliche as any.</p><p>Eddie meets his eyes in the mirror. “Hello,” he says back, and Richie grins, stepping forward to settle his hands on Eddie’s shoulders, gentle this time. </p><p>“Wanna say sorry for calling me an asshole?” he asks, as he rubs at them, really digging his thumbs in there. It’s where Eddie carries all of his tension, and as he does it, he can watch it slip from him bit by bit; he stops messing with his hair and his eyes shut. With a little exhale, he leans back into his touch. </p><p>“No,” Eddie says, absent and slow. “I’ll call you an asshole again, right now. I don’t give a fuck.”</p><p>Richie laughs, ducking his head to nose at his ear. “Do it then.”</p><p>“Asshole,” Eddie says, and turns his head to kiss him. </p><p>It’s a long kiss, until Eddie breaks it. </p><p>“We, uh,” Eddie says hastily, eyes skittering back to the mirror. “So. <em> Here </em>?”</p><p>Richie looks at the mirror, too. The walls are papered with band posters from yesteryear; backwards, he can read some graffiti on the wall; a cartoon turtle, a handful of phone numbers, someone by the name of Ziggy who’d drawn a lovingly detailed dick on the wall and indicated, with some misspellings, that they'd been here. “The Ritz Carlton was booked,” he explains. </p><p>“Richie…” Eddie sighs, leaning back against him anyway. </p><p>“You said eight,” Richie reminds him, sliding a hand around him to splay flat on his abdomen. “That was <em> your </em>idea.” </p><p>But a single kiss from Eddie in the bathroom of a bar is a victory in itself; he’d be perfectly happy to jerk off to just the memory of that for months. He won’t be too disappointed if that’s all he gets, and accordingly, when Eddie keeps quiet,Richie holds his hands up, surrendering. “Okay, okay, look, I mean, we don’t <em> have </em> to. Obviously. You know I can deal with a little bit of delayed gratification, I mean, you know that’s my thing, anyway! It’s nice to have something to look forward to when we get back.”</p><p>Resolution settles across Eddie’s face; a noble determination. This, Richie imagines, is how he looked before he flung his magic arrow at Pennywise, although as heroism goes, the act of agreeing to have sex in the bathroom of bar is markedly lower stakes. “We have to be quick,” Eddie says, and Richie blinks, startled. “Bill’s the only one drunk enough to not notice we’re gone.”</p><p>“Okay! Uh. Cool. I’ll just...wow,” Richie says, stupidly. He hadn’t thought that he would get this far, genuinely. He fumbles through his pockets for lube, his heart pounding in his ears. Does he have lube? A month, for this. <em> Fuck</em>. What if he doesn’t have any. “Let me just see if I have...oh!” </p><p>Richie can hear a choir of angels, distantly, as he presents the tube for Eddie’s viewing with a flourish, although maybe that’s just <em> Bastards of Young </em> out there thrumming from the bar speakers. “Let’s, uh...where should we…”</p><p>“I’m not doing it in a stall, that’s—” Eddie screws up his face, before pausing to assess the situation. “What about...let’s just...here.”</p><p>“Here?”</p><p>The two of them look up into the mirror; Eddie with his hair just recently recovered from getting noogied, Richie a little drunker than Eddie is, faintly flushed, over his shoulder. </p><p>There’s a pause, and Eddie leans down a little, steadying himself against the sink. </p><p>“Yeah,” Eddie says, a little hoarsely. The change in position has angled him just so; deliberately, he grinds back against Richie’s hips, and Richie groans, a hand dropping down to rest on the curve of Eddie’s waist. “I mean, you’ve been really patient, Rich. You did a good job.”</p><p>“I did?” Richie asks, weakly. Eddie doesn’t answer; but he doesn’t pull back, either, and impulsively, Richie cants his hips, flush up against his ass, and thinks about fucking him. Thinks about how he’s <em> going </em> to, now. He had done a good job. Eddie thinks so, anyway.</p><p>His thoughts scatter as Eddie speaks up again. “I meant it about <em> we have to be quick</em>, I don’t want them to send Bill to find us, we’ll have to babysit him, he tries to go drink for drink with Mike every time—”</p><p>“Okay! Okay. Let me just—I have to—”</p><p>He fumbles for the lube. Eddie reaches down to unbuckle his belt and undo his jeans; the clink of the buckle makes Richie’s cock jump. Eddie’s wearing underwear, this time, and he leaves it for Richie to tug down his thighs once he’s gotten two fingers slick.  Ancient LED lights on the ceiling cast a hazy pink and blue neon down on them as Richie steadies himself with a hand on Eddie’s back, the palm of his free hand flat against his bare skin where his t-shirt’s rucked up a little bit, his fingers splayed on the fabric itself.</p><p>Eddie’s skin is hot under his palm, and he can feel the muscles in his back tense,just a little bit, as Richie works two fingers dripping with lube into him, easy and slow, in but not <em> quite </em> out, not like if he were trying to make him come like this. As much as he wants to. He wonders, helplessly, if Eddie’s done this to himself, alone, in the month that he’s been gone. If he’d missed the real thing; if he’d been frustrated that his fingers weren’t enough. If he wants this now as badly as Richie has, all this time. </p><p>Eddie drops his head a little bit, eyes shutting as Richie inadvertently hits the right spot, and impulsively, Richie does it again, so that he can see Eddie bite his lip. Maybe he’s trying not to come, he thinks, hazily. Like Richie is now, actually, and—god, he’s hard, and if he comes <em> now</em>, he’ll only have himself to blame for ruining this—</p><p>“Richie,” Eddie says impatiently, already breathy, like he can hear what he’s thinking. Richie looks up; Eddie’s been watching him in the mirror, meeting his eyes. “Okay,” Richie breathes, tearing his eyes away from the sight of his fingers sunk into Eddie. “Alright.”</p><p>He withdraws his hand and fumbles to unzip his jeans instead so that he can get his dick out, giving it a few cursory strokes, although it’s really not necessary. He’s achingly hard, weeping from the head, and frankly, he doesn’t trust himself to touch himself too much, although now that he has it in hand, he can’t resist the impulse to nudge up against Eddie’s hole with it, just grinding up against him for now, watching the way his precome leaves him slick, adding to the mess from the lube. </p><p>“<em>R</em><em>ichie</em>,” Eddie says again, this time with an edge of frustration, and—Richie hadn’t meant to do it to tease him, he’d meant to do it to <em> savor </em> this, but now he sees he’s done it inadvertently, because Eddie <em> wants </em>this. Eddie, he realizes, looks just about as achingly as hard as he is, and he glances up at the mirror, he can see that Eddie’s flushed, his eyes dark. </p><p>Eddie isn’t just letting him do this, he realizes. Eddie’s not just <em> rewarding </em> him. Letting him do this to him in the bathroom of a bar isn’t an act of heroism; Eddie’s <em> getting off </em> on this, the risk, here, like he’d gotten off on the thought of blowing Richie in the Uber.</p><p>“Edward <em> Kaspbrak</em>, you’re a little perv,” Richie says, awed. “I thought it was just me—”</p><p>The look Eddie shoots him, in the mirror, is nothing short of murderous, and it shouldn’t turn Richie on like it does.</p><p>“If you don’t put your dick in me,” Eddie says, ice cold. “Right now. I will cut it off. I will drive home. I will put it in the celery juicer.”</p><p>That shouldn’t turn him on either, although it’s really not the visual, to be fair, it’s the <em> tone</em>. “Christ,” Richie says, hastily. “Okay.”<br/>
There’s only one way to mollify Eddie, here, and Richie, nobly, decides to take one for the team in this instance. Richie gives his cock a cursory stroke—liberal with the lube, before he begins to press into him, his hand slipping down to grasp his hip to keep him still. </p><p>And Eddie’s hot and <em> tight</em>. It’s been a while; if Eddie’s experimented in the month he’s been gone, it hasn’t been with anything bigger than his fingers. Richie’s careful as he sinks into him, slow, even if he’s delirious with how good this is, how much he’s missed it, how much he’s wanted this. </p><p>Eddie’s shut his eyes again. Richie can see his grip on the sink has gone white-knuckled, and he can feel him tense up a little more, impossibly, as he draws a shaky breath in as Richie continues on, inch by inch, until finally—an eternity later—Richie’s buried into him to the hilt, flush up against his back. </p><p>“Holy fuck,” Eddie breathes, now wide-eyed. He peers up at the mirror; but not quite up at his own reflection, like he can’t quite look at himself.</p><p>“You good?” Richie asks, his voice strained. </p><p>“I forgot how big you are,” Eddie says, and Richie almost groans at that. “What the fuck.”</p><p>“You really know how to flatter a guy,” he says, ducking his head to kiss the side of his neck, a little clumsily. </p><p>“I didn’t say it was a good thing,” Eddie says, fidgeting a little bit, and just <em> that </em> little bit of motion means that Richie has to rest his forehead against Eddie’s shoulder. “Maybe it’s excessive.”</p><p>At that, though, Richie laughs, a little hoarse. “You love it.”</p><p>“I do,” Eddie says, and <em> that </em>makes the heat surge up in Richie, how easily he says it, and he thrusts shallowly into him reflexively, rocking Eddie against the sink. “Keep going.”</p><p>Richie keeps going, as commanded. A little gingerly at first—careful thrusts, shallow at first, a little deeper, and then a little deeper. Distantly, he can hear the murmur of conversation from the bar outside, the thump of music, glasses clinking—and paired with the sound of <em> sex</em>, Richie fucking into Eddie, Eddie’s breath coming in pants, it’s particularly obscene. </p><p>But they could be anywhere, really, and Richie would still be losing his mind, because he’s waited for this, so patiently. He ducks his head to graze the back of Eddie’s neck with his teeth, nosing at where his hair is curling a little from the spring heat. And the angle is a little bit awkward, but it compels Eddie to turn his head and pull him into a kiss, clumsy, wet, desperate. Richie’s fingers dig into Eddie’s hips. </p><p>“That’s all you got?” Eddie breathes, having just pulled back enough to talk, almost kissing; he’s jostled by another thrust of Richie’s, nearly knocking Eddie’s nose with Richie’s glasses. </p><p>“What?” Richie asks, hazily, too absorbed into how it feels to fuck into Eddie—and even if he hadn’t been, the way that Eddie’s voice sounds—raw and rough and fucked-out—is a spectacular distraction from what he’s actually saying.</p><p>“C’mon, Rich,” Eddie manages hoarsely. “You want another month, huh? Is that what it’s going to take for you to stop fucking me like a <em> bitch </em> ?” Another month. Another <em> month</em>. Just the thought of that drags a moan from Richie before he can stop himself; and he’s horrified at the thought of it, sure, but he wonders, too. It’s <em> good </em> like this, after a month. How good would it be after two? </p><p>And for a moment, it feels like the part that’s wondering is going to win out—until Eddie grinds back into him, and Richie sees stars. He knows, then, what he wants. “Fuck you, Kaspbrak,” he growls low into Eddie’s ear. </p><p>Richie picks up the pace, leaning forward, crushing Eddie between him and the sink. It means he can get deeper, and startled by the feeling of it, Eddie sucks in a breath, his hand slipping; he scrabbles to steady himself against the wall. Richie somehow manages to work a hand in front of him so that he can wrap his fingers around his dick, jerking him harshly, enough so that Eddie whimpers, loud and sharp and echoing. </p><p>Distantly, there’s a knock at the door, but Richie ignores it. </p><p>Presently, he has other things on his mind. His eyes are fixed on Eddie in the mirror—eyes shut now, hair mussed, even after his attempts to fix it, face blotchy and flushed. Eddie’s tight and hot around him, and he’s glorious in the mirror, a wreck. And more than anything, Richie wants to make him come; and then he wants it twice as much as he thrusts up into him just <em> so</em>, and Eddie gasps, eyes flying open.</p><p>And Richie wants to come—he’s wanted to come all month, but he’s never wanted it like he does now. It takes every effort to keep him from doing it just from the sound of that gasp. </p><p>“Eddie,” Richie says hoarsely, angling to hit that spot again, and Eddie’s free hand flies up to clasp at his mouth loosely, stifling a moan as the door rattles again with another knock. Richie tucks his face against the side of Eddie’s neck. “<em>Eddie</em>,” he manages again, muffled into his skin, and with one last thrust, Eddie comes in pulses, leaving Richie’s hand slick, the sink a mess. </p><p>And Richie comes, too. </p><p>Richie’s had a healthy libido; he’s had decades of orgasms under his belt. But he’s never come quite like this; not when he was in college and masturbating, probably, compulsively, not when he’d moved in with Eddie and he’d discovered Eddie’s penchant for shirtlessness in the privacy of his home, not ever. This time, it’s <em> electric </em>under his skin, the sheer pleasure of it overwhelming—pure hedonism as he groans and buries himself into Eddie to the hilt, as deep as he can get, pumping him full.</p><p>Richie slumps heavy on Eddie’s back, thrusting into him lazily through the aftershocks, lazy and shallow. He kisses whatever part of him that he can reach, which turns out to be his jaw, his cheek, his ear, and laughs, quietly. </p><p>“What the fuck’s so funny,” Eddie mumbles, squinting at Richie in the mirror. Richie grins back, stupid, happy.  </p><p>“Nothing. I think I came my brains out,” he says, and pulls out of Eddie with a hiss. He’s not sure about the science of it—if it even works that way, the male ejaculatory system—but he feels another twinge of heat at the sight of his come spilling out from Eddie, more than usual, he’s pretty sure, dripping from him, slick down his thighs. </p><p>“What brains,” Eddie says, distracting him, and Richie laughs genuinely at that. He turns Eddie to face him so that he can kiss him, finally, properly this time—languidly, easily. Richie rests his forehead against Eddie’s when he’s done, hunched down, his glasses bumping into Eddie a little awkwardly, but Eddie doesn’t pull back. </p><p>“I missed you, you know,” Eddie murmurs. “A whole lot.”</p><p>“Because you <em> like </em> me,” Richie says, teasingly. </p><p>“Because I love you. More than anything,” Eddie says, because he’s like that; flickers of earnestness between the prickliness and the lectures and the neuroses. He’s sweet. Richie kisses him again, quick this time, before pulling away, reluctantly. </p><p>They do a quick clean-up job together. The post-orgasm haze is blissful but it’s made Richie sluggish—there’s nothing he wants more than to go home and curl up in bed with Eddie, even if they’re hours out from that yet. </p><p>“I feel like a mess,” Eddie grumbles as he tries his best to clean himself up with paper towels. “You got me all gross.”</p><p>“You’re the one who wanted me to save it up all month,” Richie says, tartly. “I put it exactly where I—”</p><p>“<em>Uuugh</em>,” Eddie groans, disgusted as he tosses the paper towels in the garbage, before he starts to put his clothes in order. “That’s enough.”</p><p>“My favorite critic,” Richie sighs, and Eddie—rummaging through the cupboard under the sink, inexplicably—flips him the bird, which isn’t very nice of him. </p><p>And then, suddenly, there’s a pounding at the door, far more insistent. Richie jumps, and Eddie—who’s now frantically cleaning up the sink with an ancient bottle of Windex he’d fished out of said cupboard—nearly drops the bottle clutched in his hand, startled. </p><p>“Just a second!” Richie calls, dropping his voice. “Okay, we gotta—it’s cleaner than it’s ever <em> been, </em> Eddie, let’s <em> go </em>—”</p><p>“I’m being a <em> responsible patron</em>,” Eddie hisses. </p><p>“Oh, great,” Richie says, already heading for the door. “Let’s go tell the bartender you cleaned up the sink after you jizzed all over it. Maybe, if you’re lucky, she’ll give you a sticker.</p><p>“Shut the fuck up. Hey. Shut the fuck up. Okay, I mean—” Eddie pauses, surveying his work; how Richie sees it, it’s an improvement on how it had looked when Richie had gotten in there in the first place, so maybe they do deserve that sticker. “It’s good, I think.”</p><p>When Richie tugs open the door to apologize to someone who probably—at this point—<em> desperately </em> needs to piss (so much for quick), he’s instead faced with one Bill Denbrough, who looks both pleased to see him and very drunk.</p><p>“I decided to find you,” Bill announces, visibly wobbly. He claps his hand on Richie’s shoulder; it’s meant to be a comradely gesture, but Richie’s also pretty sure it’s what’s keeping him upright, presently. “Well, they sent me. And here you both are. I found you.”</p><p>“You found us!” Richie exclaims, giving that hand a friendly pat, and Bill’s pleased with the praise.</p><p>“Now I have to bring you back to the table,” he explains, and glances behind him, for the first time visibly uncertain. </p><p>“Do you, uh. Remember where that is, buddy?” Richie ventures. Eddie skulks behind him, and Richie can feel the nervousness radiating off of him, although the state that he’s in is in Eddie’s favor. It’s unclear how much of this Bill will remember. </p><p>“Yes,” Bill says, and promptly turns to head towards what Richie is pretty sure is the emergency exit. Hastily—the last thing he wants is to set off a <em> Richie and Eddie have been fucking in the bathroom </em> fire alarm—Richie slings an arm around Bill’s shoulders and steers him in the right direction.</p><p>“I think you remember it was this way,” he says, and Bill’s willing to concede that, so they start to make their way back through the throng of people huddled at the bar. Eddie trails behind the two of them; Richie doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s mortified. </p><p>“We were, uh. Richie dropped his phone in the sink. We were trying to fix it,” Eddie says loudly, but Bill only has a passing interest in his explanation, because—as Richie sees it—approximately ninety percent of his brain power is centered on how he might put one foot in front of the other. It’s a slow, meandering process, and as he lurches to the side, Eddie comes up to steady him on the other side. Behind Bill’s back, their hands brush, and they look at each other. </p><p>“I think we got away with it,” Richie says, sotto voce, and Eddie squints at him, but he looks hopeful.</p><p>“You think?” he whispers back.</p><p>“Oh, yeah.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“How long is it going to take them to finish having sex in the bathroom,” Stan wonders. “Trivia’s in ten minutes.”</p><p>Mike surveys him with some uncertainty. “They’re <em> not</em>.”</p><p>“Cars is the first category,” Stan continues on, like it isn’t even a question. “We need Eddie for that.”</p><p>“I don’t think they would,” Bev says, not scandalized, just skeptical. “In the bathroom? Eddie would make him wear a hazmat suit.” </p><p>“I mean, to be fair—for argument’s sake—what else could they possibly be doing?” Ben says. “They’re not playing bridge. It’s been forever.”</p><p>“Who plays bridge under the age, like, eighty? <em> I </em> don’t know how to play bridge,” Bev says.</p><p>“I like bridge,” Mike offers, and Bev eyes him suspiciously. “I think it’s fun.”</p><p>“Who’d you learn to play bridge from?” she asks, and Mike opens his mouth, and then closes it. The rest of them stare. </p><p>“My seniors group. At the library,” Mike ventures, and when the rest of them continue to stare, he holds up in his hands in surrender. “Alright. Okay—oh, there they are.”</p><p>It’s Eddie, and Richie, with Bill slung between them; a pitiful sight to see, because Turner Classic Movies is the fourth category, but Mike and Stan can probably cobble up enough of an effort together to make a decent go of it even without Bill’s expertise.</p><p>“Bill was trying to make a break for it,” Richie explains, tugging out a seat for Bill and settling him into it before crowding in at Eddie’s side. “We caught him at the emergency exit.”</p><p>Bill squints, clutching at the table. “I was?” he wonders. </p><p>“How’d splashing that water on your face go?” Bev interrupts, her gaze boring into Richie. “Did it help?”</p><p>Eddie—notoriously poor with any degree of deception—peers down at his hands, but Richie takes Bev’s challenge, scratching at his chin, poker-faced. “A little bit, I guess. I’m bushed, though. I’m going to be passed out on this table in like, an hour.”</p><p>“You must be glad to have him back,” Ben says, nudging Eddie to break his focus. “I can’t imagine. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself for a month without Bev.”</p><p>“He’s alright,” Eddie says, begrudgingly, and Richie grins.</p><p>“He missed me,” Richie explains. “He’s been pining.”</p><p>This tears Eddie’s attention from the drink menu entirely; Richie’s grin doesn’t falter a whit under his glare. “I haven’t been pining,” Eddie says, irritably. “I don’t <em> pine</em>. It’s been peaceful. And clean. And neat. I got a lot of work done around the house.”</p><p>“But you <em> totally </em>missed him,” Bev interjects. “C’mon.” </p><p>“I missed him,” Eddie confirms, resignedly. “I did. It’s embarrassing.”</p><p>It earns him a shoulder pat of solidarity from Ben as Richie leans in, chin in hand. “Maybe I should try to do some writing at home, huh?” he asks. “We can skip the bicoastal thing for a little bit.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Eddie asks. For a handful of seconds, they’re in a bubble; Mike and Stan have wandered off into an argument about bridge, taking up the vast majority of airspace in the conversation. “I mean, if that’s what you want.”</p><p>Richie cocks his head. “What, you think I couldn’t focus with you around?”</p><p>“I bet you could,” Eddie says, after a moment’s consideration. “But I bet it’d be harder. In a way.”</p><p>“You’re talking about <em> building houses of cards</em>,” Mike says. “Respectfully—Stanley, that’s—that has nothing to do with bridge.”</p><p>“You build bridges,” Stanley explains, as Richie studies his hands, intently. “With the cards. You could call it <em> bridges</em>.”</p><p>“You’re winding me up, huh,” Mike groans. “Why do I always fall for this.” </p><p>There’s a tug at Richie’s sleeve, and Richie’s head—which is swimming with plenty of thoughts, by the look of him—turns. “Shouldn’t you go home,” Bill says firmly, settling his hand on his shoulder. “You’re still tired. You had a redeye, you said. It’s—it’s really fine. If you have to. We’ll drive Eddie back.”</p><p>“Me? Oh, no. I’m fine. I’ll wait,” Richie says. He locks eyes with Eddie across the table. Eddie’s inches from leaping into the bridge dispute, but it’s enough to distract him; he smiles, rosy from drink. Richie smiles back at him, as loved and happy as he’s ever been. “I can be patient.”</p>
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